Sequence of Entries
The entries in this dictionary are in alphabetical sequence. Only alphabetic and numeric characters are used to determine the sequence of entries; special characters and spaces between words are ignored. A few terms begin with a number; these terms and their associated definitions precede the alphabetical listing.
Organization of Entries
An entry consists of a term or its abbreviation followed by one or more definitions.
A term consists of one or more words identifying a concept.
Each definition is organized as follows:
An optional usage label, indicating the area of application of the term. For example, "In programming," or "In artificial neutral networks,".
A defining phrase stating the meaning of the concept. The defining phrase is assumed to be preceded by "The term is defined as". The part of speech being defined is usually indicated by the opening words of the defining phrase: "To" indicates a verb; "Pertaining to" indicates a modifier; "A", "The", "An", "Any", "Each of", etc., indicate a noun or a noun phrase.
Additional sentences, formulae, and figures may also be present for further clarification. A figure is identified by figure number and title. The figure titles are hotspots to bring up the figures.
"information: (1) The meaning that is currently assigned to data by means of the conventions applied to these data."
Example of a hotspot leading to an entry with a part of speech other than that of the word(s) used in the hotspot:
"abnormal termination: An unplanned cessation of processing."
In this case, the hotspot leads to the entry "process" with three definitions; the first two are for the noun "process"; the third is for the verb (to) "process". The meaning of the gerund of the verb is intended and substituting the definition of (to) "process" appropriately into the definition of "abnormal termination" results in the definition to read: "An unplanned cessation of performing operations on data."
In some cases, each word of a multi-word term is a hotspot. For example:
"memory management unit (MMU): A functional unit that provides protection, sharing, and allocation of memory blocks."
In this case, the definitions of 'memory' and 'block' are given separately.
Contrast with: Refers to a term that has an opposite or substantially different meaning.
Synonym for: Indicates that the term has the same or nearly the same meaning as the preferred term shown as a hotspot, which is defined in its alphabetic place in the dictionary. If the preferred term has more than one synonym, each synonym has its own entry and points back to the preferred term with the phrase "Synonym for".
Synonymous with: Indicates a reference from the preferred, defined term to all other terms that have the same meaning, but not shown as hotspot(s).
Abridged term for: Identifies the full term. The abridged term may be a more common name than the full term.
Deprecated synonym for: Indicates that the particular usage of the term is discouraged even though it may be widely used. This reference label leads the reader to a preferred term, which is defined in its alphabetic place in the dictionary.
A term is one or more words by which a concept is known. In this dictionary, the singular form of the noun and the infinitive form of the verb are most often selected for the term. Common abbreviations may be given in parentheses following the term. The abbreviation is also entered in its alphabetical order in the dictionary. An abbreviation may be the primary term.
Purpose And Scope
This standard contains concepts used in information technology. In general, concepts or terms found in an everyday nontechnical dictionary are not included. Also, concepts and terms that are: a) from specialized areas of information technology, b) still in development, and c) of a parochial nature, are not necessarily incorporated in this standard. Inevitably, the rapid growth of the field of information technology precludes the standard from being exhaustive and final.
Bibliography
ISO/IEC International Standard 2382, Information Technology -- Vocabulary and associated working documents.