referent

referent
    adj 1: having reference; "judgments referent to the indictment"
    n 1: something referred to; the object of a reference
    2: the first term in a proposition; the term to which other
       terms relate
    3: something that refers; a term that refers to another term
    

53 Moby Thesaurus words for "referent":
      affective meaning, bearing, coloring, connotation, consequence,
      denotation, drift, effect, essence, extension, force, gist,
      grammatical meaning, idea, impact, implication, import, intension,
      lexical meaning, literal meaning, meaning, overtone, pertinence,
      pith, point, practical consequence, purport, range of meaning,
      real meaning, reference, relation, relevance, scope,
      semantic cluster, semantic field, sense, significance,
      signification, significatum, signifie, span of meaning, spirit,
      structural meaning, substance, sum, sum and substance,
      symbolic meaning, tenor, totality of associations,
      transferred meaning, unadorned meaning, undertone, value