A glossary (from grc, γλῶσσα, ''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 and includes terms within that book that are either newly introduced, uncommon, or specialized. While glossaries are most commonly associated with
non-fiction books, in some cases,
fiction
Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals, events, or places that are imaginary, or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with history, fact, or plausibility. In a traditi ...
novels may come with 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 exactly 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 all ...
s (or at least near-synonyms) in another language.
In a general sense, a glossary contains explanations of
concepts relevant to a certain field of study or action. In this sense, the term is related to the notion of
ontology. Automatic methods have been also provided that transform a glossary into an ontology or a computational lexicon.
History
In medieval Europe, glossaries with equivalents for Latin words in
vernacular or simpler Latin were in use, such as the
Leiden Glossary (ca. 800 CE).
Core glossary
A ''core glossary'' is a simple glossary or
defining dictionary 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 and extract one or more glosses for each term of interest. Glosses can then be analyzed to extract
hypernyms of the defined term and other lexical and semantic relations.
See also
*
Index (publishing)
An index (plural: usually indexes, more rarely indices; see below) 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 doc ...
*
Terminology extraction
* ''
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 translitera ...
'', a glossary of Pahlavi logograms
*
Controlled vocabulary
References
External links
glossarist.com: The Glossarist- Large list of glossaries
Selected Multilingual Glossaries by Industry
{{Authority control
Book design
Lexicography