Desire without passion, nominally (3)

I believe the answer is:

des

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me about this clue!

Here is my best explanation:

'nominally' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I cannot tell whether it can be defined by this definition.

'desire without passion' is the wordplay.
'without' is a deletion indicator.
'passion' becomes 'ire' (I've seen this before).
'desire' with 'ire' taken out is 'DES'.

Can you help me to learn more?