From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishnotionno‧tion /ˈnəʊʃən $ ˈnoʊ-/ ●●○ W3 AWL noun [countable] 1 IDEAan idea, belief, or opinionnotion of misguided notions of male superiority The traditional notion of marriage goes back thousands of years. She had only a vague notion of what she wanted to do.notion that the notion that human beings are basically good She had no notion what he meant.accept/challenge/reject etc a notion They reject the notion of group guilt.► see thesaurus at idea2 → notionsCOLLOCATIONSverbshave a notionHe didn’t have a clear notion of what he had to do.accept a notionProbably 95% of scientists now accept the notion that human activity is causing climate change.support a notionThere is no evidence to support the notion that girls are treated better than boys in school.reinforce a notion (=make an idea stronger or easier to believe)The research reinforces the notion that fathers have an important role in their children’s lives.challenge/dispute a notionCopernicus challenged the notion that the Sun goes around the Earth.reject/dismiss a notionAristotle rejected the notion that the body and the soul are separate.adjectivesa vague notion (=an unclear idea)He had only a vague notion of what might happen next.an absurd/ridiculous notionThey had the ridiculous notion that they could make a living from singing.a simple notionYou cannot rate the project according to a simple notion of ‘value for money’: there are too many factors involved.an abstract notionIn art, how can you represent abstract notions such as peace or justice?a romantic notion (=one that is based on how you want something to be, not how it is in real life)He rejected the romantic notion of rugby as a game for gentlemen.a preconceived notion (=an idea that you have before you have enough knowledge or experience)The police were accused of twisting the evidence to meet their preconceived notion of his guilt.an accepted/received notion (=an idea that most people believe)These women challenged accepted notions of female roles in society.the whole notion of something (=used to emphasize that you are talking about a lot of related ideas, not just one specific idea)The movie makes us question the whole notion of what makes a hero.phrasesnot have the faintest/foggiest notion (=not know or understand something at all)He had not the foggiest notion how far he might have to walk.
Examples from the Corpus
notion• Home is a notion that only the nations of the homeless fully appreciate and only the uprooted comprehend.• Humans still hold on to the absurd notion that we are the only intelligent beings in the Universe.• Though Centralism comes in many guises and applications, the basic notions that fuel it are remarkably consistent-as are the results.• Modern society does not always correspond to classical notions of democracy.• Many widely-held notions about crime have come from the cinema, magazines, or novels.• The heart of the legal notion of partnership consists in the mutual trust and confidence of the participants.• Even some former skeptics said that probably 95 percent of experts now accept the notion.• A decade ago, even the notion of Phoenix as big-time was laughable.• An analogy can be drawn with the notion of mutations in genetics.• In the post-war period some democratic elitists detected a major flaw in this notion of bureaucratic rationality.notion of• The problem stems from an unrealistic notion of what teachers do.Origin notion (1300-1400) Latin notio, from notus; → NOTICE2 