In the philosophy of language, the distinction between sense and reference was an idea of the German philosopher and mathematician Gottlob Frege in 1892 (in his paper On Sense and Reference; German: Über Sinn und Bedeutung), reflecting the two ways he believed a singular term may have meaning.

The reference (or referent; Bedeutung) of a proper name is the object it means or indicates (bedeuten), whereas its sense (Sinn) is what the name expresses. The reference of a sentence is its truth value, whereas its sense is the thought that it expresses. Frege justified the distinction in a number of ways.

• Sense is something possessed by a name, whether or not it has a reference. For example, the name Odysseus is intelligible, and therefore has a sense, even though there is no individual object (its reference) to which the name corresponds.
• The sense of different names is different, even when their reference is the same. Frege argued that if an identity statement such as Hesperus is the same planet as Phosphorus is to be informative, the proper names flanking the identity sign must have a different meaning or sense. But clearly, if the statement is true, they must have the same reference. The sense is a 'mode of presentation', which serves to illuminate only a single aspect of the referent.

• Theory of Meaning
  • theory of sense
  • theory of reference

• Sense
  • Indefinite sense
  • definite sense
• Reference
  • Indefinite reference
  • Definite reference

• Sense and context
• Reference and context

• था
  • तथ्य (fact)
  • यथार्थता ( reality )
  • शास्त्रार्थ (discourse)
  • यथार्थता ( reality ) , यथार्थता (accuracy)
  • कथा ( questionable place - story ) , कथ , मिथ्या , कथा
  • मिथ्या तर्क (fallacy) , मिथ्यापनीयता (Falsifiability)
  • अर्थ ( meaning ) , अर्थ
  • गाथा ( song of place )

• from space( दिक )
  • दिशा ( directions and orientation )
    • निर्देश ( reference ) , निर्देशक ( referent )
    • उपदेश ( message )
    • संदेश ( signal )
    • देश
      • प्रदेश