The belief that so-called universals are nothing more than verbal labels or mental habits that are used to denote classes of experience.

The theory that reality exists only in physical objects; universals or abstract concepts represent no existing real things, so having no objective reference are no more than their names. An opposite of Realism.

(philosophy) the doctrine that the various objects labeled by the same term have nothing in common but their name

The theory that universals are not real but only class names.

an understanding of universal categories as class names which have no reality outside the individual particulars which make them up (in contrast with realism

The theory or philosophy that only individual things with their individual properties exist and no abstract entities (such as universals, classes, or propositions) exist.

The American Heritage Dictionary, Fourth Edition, defines nominalism as "the doctrine holding that abstract concepts, general terms, or universals have no independent existence but exist only as names." Nominalism has also been defined as a philosophical position that various objects labeled by the same term have nothing in common but their name.http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn In this view, it is only actual physical particulars that can be said to be real and universals exist only post res, that is, subsequent to particular things. (Feibleman 1962).