the distinction between sense and reference

Sense and reference are concepts from philosophy of language that explain different aspects of meaning. "Sense" is the way a term presents a concept—its mental or informational content, like how a word or phrase is understood. "Reference" is the actual thing or object in the real world that a term points to or identifies. For example, the sense of "the morning star" is how we understand the idea of that celestial object, while its reference is the actual star in the sky. The sense helps us interpret the term, and the reference connects that term to something concrete.