cognomen (n.)

  1. a familiar name for a person (often a shortened version of a persons given name); Joes mother would not use his nickname and always called him Joseph; Henrys nickname was Slim

    [ Syn: nickname , moniker , sobriquet , soubriquet , byname ]

  2. the name used to identify the members of a family (as distinguished from each members given name)

    [ Syn: surname , family name , last name ]

The dictionary is based on the WordNet Electronic Lexical Database.
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