terminology

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

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˌtɚməˈnɒləd͡ʒi/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌtɚməˈnɑləd͡ʒi/

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.

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

• glossary

• terminological
• terminologically
• terminologist

• argot
• jargon
• terminism
• terminist

• terminology in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• terminology in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

From English terminology.

terminology (plural terminologies)

1. terminology