A glossary (from , ''glossa''; language, speech, wording), also known as a vocabulary or clavis, is an alphabetical list of
terms in a particular
domain of knowledge with the
definition
A definition is a statement of the meaning of a term (a word, phrase, or other set of symbols). Definitions can be classified into two large categories: intensional definitions (which try to give the sense of a term), and extensional definitio ...
s for those terms. Traditionally, a glossary appears at the end of a
book
A book is a structured presentation of recorded information, primarily verbal and graphical, through a medium. Originally physical, electronic books and audiobooks are now existent. Physical books are objects that contain printed material, ...
and includes terms within that book that are either newly introduced, uncommon, or specialized. While glossaries are most commonly associated with
non-fiction
Non-fiction (or nonfiction) is any document or content (media), media content that attempts, in good faith, to convey information only about the real life, real world, rather than being grounded in imagination. Non-fiction typically aims to pre ...
books, in some cases,
fiction
Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying character (arts), individuals, events, or setting (narrative), places that are imagination, imaginary or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent ...
novels sometimes include a glossary for unfamiliar terms.
A bilingual glossary is a list of terms in one language defined in a second language or
glossed by
synonym
A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...
s (or at least near-synonyms) in another language.
In a general sense, a glossary contains explanations of
concept
A concept is an abstract idea that serves as a foundation for more concrete principles, thoughts, and beliefs.
Concepts play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied within such disciplines as linguistics, ...
s relevant to a certain field of study or action. In this sense, the term is related to the notion of
ontology
Ontology is the philosophical study of existence, being. It is traditionally understood as the subdiscipline of metaphysics focused on the most general features of reality. As one of the most fundamental concepts, being encompasses all of realit ...
. Automatic methods have been also provided that transform a glossary into an ontology or a computational lexicon.
Core glossary
A ''core glossary'' is a simple glossary or
explanatory dictionary
An explanatory dictionary or defining dictionary is a dictionary that provides definitions of word meanings at its entries. It may give additional information on pronunciation, grammar, etymology
Etymology ( ) is the study of the origin an ...
that enables definition of other concepts, especially for newcomers to a language or field of study. It contains a small working vocabulary and definitions for important or frequently encountered concepts, usually including idioms or metaphors useful in a culture.
Automatic extraction of glossaries
Computational approaches to the automated extraction of glossaries from corpora or the Web
[P. Velardi, R. Navigli, P. D'Amadio]
Mining the Web to Create Specialised Glossaries
IEEE Intelligent Systems, 23(5), IEEE Press, 2008, pp. 18-25. have been developed in the recent years. These methods typically start from domain
terminology
Terminology is a group of specialized words and respective meanings in a particular field, and also the study of such terms and their use; the latter meaning is also known as terminology science. A ''term'' is a word, Compound (linguistics), com ...
and extract one or more glosses for each term of interest. Glosses can then be analyzed to extract
hypernym
Hypernymy and hyponymy are the semantic relations between a generic term (''hypernym'') and a more specific term (''hyponym''). The hypernym is also called a ''supertype'', ''umbrella term'', or ''blanket term''. The hyponym names a subtype of ...
s of the defined term and other lexical and semantic relations.
See also
*
Controlled vocabulary
A controlled vocabulary provides a way to organize knowledge for subsequent retrieval. Controlled vocabularies are used in subject indexing schemes, subject headings, thesauri, taxonomies and other knowledge organization systems. Controlled v ...
*
Dictionary
A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged Alphabetical order, alphabetically (or by Semitic root, consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical-and-stroke sorting, radical an ...
* ''
Frahang-i Pahlavig
''Frahang-ī Pahlavīg'' (Middle Persian: 𐭯𐭥𐭧𐭭𐭢 𐭯𐭧𐭫𐭥𐭩𐭪 "Pahlavi dictionary") is the title of an anonymous dictionary of mostly Aramaic logograms with Middle Persian translations (in Pahlavi script) and translit ...
'', a glossary of Pahlavi logograms
*
Index (publishing)
An index (: usually indexes, more rarely indices) is a list of words or phrases ('headings') and associated pointers ('locators') to where useful material relating to that heading can be found in a document or collection of documents. Examples ar ...
*
Terminology extraction
Terminology extraction (also known as term extraction, glossary extraction, term recognition, or terminology mining) is a subtask of information extraction. The goal of terminology extraction is to automatically extract relevant terms from a gi ...
References
External links
glossarist.com: The Glossarist- Large list of glossaries
Selected Multilingual Glossaries by Industry
* This provides a detailed description of the development of glossaries in classical languages.
{{Authority control
Book design
Lexicography