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Definition of refer to phrasal verb from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

refer to

phrasal verb
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refer to somebody/something (as something)
 
  1. to mention or speak about somebody/something
    • The victims were not referred to by name.
    • Her mother never referred to him again.
    • You know who I'm referring to.
    • I promised not to refer to the matter again.
    • He referred to the fact that the vessel had not undergone a refit since 1987.
    • She always referred to Ben as ‘that nice man’.
    • This process is often referred to as global warming.
    • PCR tests, commonly referred to as swab tests, take around 24 hours to be confirmed.
    synonyms at mention
    Extra Examples
    • Kaminsky and Reinhart—hereafter referred to as KR
    • The disease was commonly referred to as ‘the green sickness’.
refer to somebody/something
  1. to describe or be connected to somebody/something
    • The star refers to items which are intended for the advanced learner.
    • The term ‘Arts’ usually refers to humanities and social sciences.
    • This paragraph refers to the events of last year.
    • In Austen's tale, the title refers to the pride of Darcy.
    • The term ‘accent’ refers to pronunciation. The term ‘dialect’ refers to vocabulary and grammar.
    • While it can be done manually, the term ‘web scraping’ generally refers to an automated process.
    • These figures refer only to full time employees.
    language bank at define
    Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadverb
    • briefly
    • in passing
    • specifically
    verb + refer to
    • be used to
    preposition
    • as
    See full entry
  2. to look at something or ask a person for information synonym consult
    • You may refer to your notes if you want.
    • to refer to a dictionary
    • Please refer to the following documents for specific details of the programme.
See refer to in the Oxford Advanced American Dictionary
trait
noun
 
 
From the Word list
Oxford 5000
B2
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