designative

Gog and Magog, names that occur in the Bible of foes of Israel, and designative in the Apocalypse of enemies of the kingdom of God, as also of a Scythian tribe N. of the Caucasus.

We once had the Free States and the Slave States, and these two terms were designative of two sections into which the country was then divided on the question of slavery.

But in course of time these words have lost their force—their meaning has been forgotten—and they have come to be mere proper names, designative but not significative.