terminology

From French terminologie or German Terminologie and their source, New Latin terminologia, from Medieval Latin terminus (“a term”)[1][2] + -ologia (“study of”), from -o- (“(interconsonantal)”) + -logia, from Ancient Greek -λογία (-logía, “-logy, branch of study, to speak”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˌtɜː.məˈnɒl.ə.d͡ʒi/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• (US, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˌtɝ.məˈnɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˌtɜː.məˈnɔl.ə.d͡ʒi/

terminology (countable and uncountable, plural terminologies)

1. A treatise on terms, especially those used in a specialised field.
2. The set of terms actually used in any business, art, science, or the like; nomenclature; technical terms.
   • 1921 [1919], H. L. Mencken, chapter 27, in The American Language, 2nd edition, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, →ISBN, →OCLC:

     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.

   • 2022 October 23, Pamela Paul, “Let’s Say Gay”, in The New York Times‎:

     Language is always changing — but it shouldn’t become inflexible, especially when new terminologies, in the name of inclusion, sometimes wind up making others feel excluded.

3. The scientific study of such terms.

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

• glossary

• terminological
• terminologically
• terminologist

• argot
• jargon
• terminism
• terminist

• “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.

From English terminology.

terminology (plural terminologies)

1. terminology