terminology

English

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “terminology”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Etymology

From Latin terminus (“a term”) + -ology (“study of”), from -o- (“(interconsonantal)”) + -logy, from Ancient Greek -λογία (-logía, “-logy, branch of study, to speak”)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌtɜːməˈnɒləd͡ʒi/
• IPA^(key): /ˌtɚməˈnɑləd͡ʒi/

Noun

terminology (countable and uncountable, plural terminologies)

1. The doctrine of terms; a theory of terms or appellations; a treatise on terms, a system of specialized terms.
2. The set of terms actually used in any business, art, science, or the like; nomenclature; technical terms.
   • 1919, H. L. Mencken, The American Language:

     Ad for advertisement is struggling hard for general recognition; some of its compounds, e. g., ad-writer, want-ad, display-ad, ad-card, ad-rate, column-ad and ad-man, are already accepted in technical terminology.

   • 2013 July 20, “Welcome to the plastisphere”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845:

     [The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across. […] Closer examination showed that some of these pits did, indeed, contain bacteria, and that in several cases these bacteria were dividing and thus, by the perverse arithmetic of biological terminology, multiplying.

Synonyms

• nomenclature, vocabulary, language, wording, phraseology, jargon, lingo, -ese

Coordinate terms

• glossary

Derived terms

• terminological
• terminologically
• terminologist

Related terms

• argot
• jargon
• terminism
• terminist

Translations

doctrine of terms

• Bulgarian: терминология (bg) f (terminologija)
• Catalan: terminologia (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 術語學／术语学 (zh) (shùyǔxué), 术语学 (zh) (shùyǔxué)

• Czech: terminologie (cs) f
• Danish: terminologi (da) c
• Dutch: terminologie (nl) f
• Esperanto: terminologio
• Estonian: terminoloogia (et)
• Finnish: terminologia (fi)
• French: terminologie (fr) f
• Galician: terminoloxía f
• Georgian: ტერმინოლოგია (ṭerminologia)
• German: Terminologie (de) f
• Greek: ορολογία (el) f (orología)
• Hebrew: טֶרְמִינוֹלוֹגְיָה (he) f (terminologia)
• Hungarian: szaknyelv (hu)
• Ido: terminaro (io)
• Indonesian: terminologi (id), peristilahan (id)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Italian: terminologia (it) f
• Khmer: យត្តស័ព្ទវិជ្ជា (yeatta’sap viccie)
• Latvian: terminoloģija f
• Lithuanian: terminologija f
• Malay: terminologi, peristilahan
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: terminologi m

  Nynorsk: terminologi m

• Polish: terminologia (pl) f
• Portuguese: terminologia (pt) f
• Romanian: terminologie (ro)
• Russian: терминоло́гия (ru) f (terminológija)
• Serbo-Croatian: terminològija (sh) f, nàzivoslōvlje (sh) n
• Slovak: terminológia f
• Slovene: terminologija f
• Spanish: terminología (es)
• Swedish: terminologi (sv) c
• Tagalog: katawagan

terms used in any business, art, etc

• Arabic: مُصْطَلَح m (muṣṭalaḥ)
• Bulgarian: терминология (bg) f (terminologija)
• Catalan: terminologia (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 用語／用语 (zh) (yòngyǔ), 用语 (zh) (yòngyǔ), 術語／术语 (zh) (shùyǔ), 术语 (zh) (shùyǔ)

• Czech: názvosloví (cs) n, terminologie (cs) f
• Danish: terminologi (da) c
• Dutch: terminologie (nl) f
• Estonian: terminoloogia (et)
• Finnish: termistö (fi), käsitteistö, terminologia (fi)
• French: terminologie (fr) f
• Galician: terminoloxía f
• German: Terminologie (de) f, Fachsprache (de) f
• Greek: ορολογία (el) f (orología)
• Hungarian: szaknyelv (hu)
• Ido: terminaro (io)
• Indonesian: terminologi (id), peristilahan (id)
• Italian: terminologia (it) f
• Japanese: 用語 (ja) (ようご, yōgo), 専門語 (せんもんご, semmongo), 術語 (ja) (じゅつご, jutsugo)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Khmer: យត្តស័ព្ទវិជ្ជា (yeatta’sap viccie), បច្ចេកសព្ទ (km) (pacceeka’ sap), យត្តស័ព្ទ (yeatta’sap)
• Latvian: terminoloģija f
• Lithuanian: terminologija f, terminija f
• Malay: terminologi, peristilahan
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: terminologi m

  Nynorsk: terminologi m

• Persian: اصطلاح (fa)
• Polish: terminologia (pl) f
• Portuguese: terminologia (pt) f
• Romanian: terminologie (ro) f
• Russian: терминоло́гия (ru) f (terminológija)
• Scots: terminology
• Serbo-Croatian: terminològija (sh) f, názīvlje (sh) n
• Spanish: terminología (es)
• Swahili: istilahi
• Swedish: terminologi (sv) c
• Tagalog: katawagan, tawag
• Tajik: истилоҳ (istiloh)

Further reading

• “terminology”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “terminology”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

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Scots

Etymology

From English terminology.

Noun

terminology (plural terminologies)

1. terminology