Term

Pronunciation

• RP enPR: tûrm, IPA: /tɜːm/
• US enPR: tûrm, IPA: /tɝm/
• Rhymes: -ɜː(r)m

Origin

From Middle English terme, from Old French terme, from Latin terminus ("a bound, boundary, limit, end, in Medieval Latin also a time, period, word, covenant, etc.").

Full definition of term

Noun

1. Limitation, restriction or regulation.
2. Any of the binding conditions or promises in a legal contract.
   Be sure to read the terms and conditions before signing.
3. That which limits the extent of anything; limit; extremity; bound; boundary.
• Francis BaconCorruption is a reciprocal to generation, and they two are as nature's two terms, or boundaries.
4. (geometry) A point, line, or superficies that limits.A line is the term of a superficies, and a superficies is the term of a solid.
5. A word or phrase, especially one from a specialised area of knowledge."Algorithm" is a term used in computer science.
6. Relations among people.
   We are on friendly terms with each other.
• 1918, W. B. Maxwell, The Mirror and the Lamp Chapter 22, Not unnaturally, “Auntie” took this communication in bad part....Next day she...tried to recover her ward by the hair of the head. Then, thwarted, the wretched creature went to the police for help; she was versed in the law, and had perhaps spared no pains to keep on good terms with the local constabulary.
7. Part of a year, especially one of the three parts of an academic year.
8. (mathematics) Any value (variable or constant) or expression separated from another term by a space or an appropriate character, in an overall expression or table.
   All the terms of this sum cancel out.
   One only term is odd in ( 12; 3; 4 ).
9. (logic) The subject or the predicate of a proposition; one of the three component parts of a syllogism, each one of which is used twice.
• Sir W. HamiltonThe subject and predicate of a proposition are, after Aristotle, together called its terms or extremes.
10. (architecture) A quadrangular pillar, adorned on top with the figure of a head, as of a man, woman, or satyr.
11. Duration of a set length; period in office of fixed length.
    He was sentenced to a term of six years in prison.
    near-term, mid-term and long-term goals
    the term allowed to a debtor to discharge his debt
12. (computing) A terminal emulator, a program that emulates a video terminal.
13. (of a patent) The maximum period during which the patent can be maintained into force.
14. (astrology) An essential dignity in which unequal segments of every astrological sign have internal rulerships which affect the power and integrity of each planet in a natal chart.
15. (archaic) A menstrual period.
• 1660, Samuel Pepys, DiaryMy wife, after the absence of her terms for seven weeks, gave me hopes of her being with child, but on the last day of the year she hath them again.
16. (nautical) A piece of carved work placed under each end of the taffrail.

Derived terms

Related terms

• terminal
• terminate

Verb

1. To phrase a certain way, especially with an unusual wording.
• 1867, Charles Sanders Peirce, S:On a New List of Categories, Abstraction or prescision ought to be carefully distinguished from two other modes of mental separation, which may be termed discrimination and dissociation.
• 2013, Henry Petroski, The Evolution of Eyeglasses, The ability of a segment of a glass sphere to magnify whatever is placed before it was known around the year 1000, when the spherical segment was called a reading stone, essentially what today we might term a frameless magnifying glass or plain glass paperweight.