non-referring

— For example, you might send a son or daughter to a story with the following insteuctions: "Get a loaf of bread, some milk and a dozen apples". You don't have any particular loaf of bread, carton(s) of milk or dozen apples in mind, so the nouns "bread", "milk" and "apples" do not refer to any particular items. Or you may use a noun in such a way that it cannot refer to an actual entity. This would be true in sentences such as "I don't have any milk" or "I wish you had some apples". In either way, we say the words "milk" and "apple" are non-referring.