namesake, n.
(ˈneɪmseɪk)
[f. name n. The use of sake is peculiar, but the comb. may have originated in two persons or things being mentioned or coupled together ‘for the name's sake’: for examples of name-sake in this sense, see sake.]
A person or thing having the same name as another.
| 1646 Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. 170 Nor [does] the Dog⁓fish at sea much more make out the Dog of the land, then that his cognominall or name-sake in the heavens. 1657 J. Watts Vindic. Church Eng. 89, I shall here dehort you from being of Iohn and Iames, (though you are the name-sake of the one). 1712 Addison Spect. No. 482 ¶2 Another..subscribes herself Xantippe, and tells me, that she follows the Example of her Name-sake. 1797 F. Burney Let. June, It was a very sweet thought to make my little namesake write to me. 1826 Scott 26 Mar. in Croker Papers (1884) I. 319, I enclose a letter for your funny namesake and kinsman. 1867 Freeman Norm. Conq. (1877) I. iv. 182 The unhappy descendant and namesake of the great Emperor. |
| attrib. 1650 Fuller Pisgah ii. 64 Looking southward behold the City of Nebo, at the foot of its namesake mountain. 1860 Forster Gr. Remonstr. 26 Postponing Luke to lucre; and setting more store by a handful of marks than by all the doctrines of their namesake saint. |
Hence
ˈnamesake v., to call by the same name; to name
after one.
nonce-wd.| 1651 Cleveland Poems 5 Their name-sak'd signs in their strange character. 1836 Haliburton Clockm. (1838) p. ix, Here's a Book they've namesaked arter me. |