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Reference
1. Definition
Reference is the relationship which holds between words (nominal elements) and things.

E.g. : The word “table” refers to what all of us can identify as a table.
Referencing is not what an expression does, but rather it is what we as speaker or writers of language do.
E.g.: I’m looking for my son. He has curly hair and round face. Have you seen him?
The speaker uses “my son”, “he”, “him” to refer to one person.
2. Sense and reference
The German philosopher and mathematician Gottlob Frege proposed a distinction to be made between the reference of a word, which is the object designed, and the sense of a word.
An example offered by Frege:

Is the evening star the evening star?

The answer is obviously “yes”, then he substituted the morning star to produce a new question:

Is the evening star the morning star?

Most people would say yes, based on their experience rather than the meaning of the expressions.
Some phrases may have sense but no reference. For example:
- The present King of China is bald.
Sense and reference are generally interdependent in that one would not normally know the other without having at least some knowledge of the other.
The expression that refers to someone or something in a context is called referring expression. There may exist a number of referring expression for one and the same referent.

E.g.: Mrs. Margaret Thatcher can be referred to as: The Iron Lady, The British Prime Minister of the 1980s, or the Leader of the Conservative Party of Britain.