Termilist

Termilist is a term used to describe a person who specializes in compiling and maintaining term lists, such as glossaries and controlled vocabularies, for a domain or organization. The term can also refer to a software tool or workflow designed to manage term lists. In practice, a termilist identifies, verifies, and standardizes terms, assigns definitions, parts of speech, usage notes, and metadata, and establishes relationships among terms (synonyms, broader and narrower terms, related concepts) to support consistent indexing and retrieval across systems. They typically work with subject matter experts, translators, data stewards, and information architects, producing deliverables such as multilingual glossaries, taxonomies, and SKOS-compatible vocabularies.

Termilists use a combination of manual curation and automated techniques, including term extraction from corpora, mining existing documentation, and crowd-sourced validation. Governance, versioning, provenance, and clear scope notes are important for maintaining quality over time. Tools include spreadsheets or database-backed glossaries, taxonomy management platforms, and ontology editors that support interoperability standards like SKOS and RDF.

Applications span technical writing, localization, scientific publishing, data governance, and knowledge management. Key challenges include polysemy, synonymy, language variation, domain-specific jargon, and evolving terminology. Best practices emphasize source validation, stakeholder engagement, and robust metadata to enable machine readability and reuse. See also glossary, controlled vocabulary, taxonomy, ontology, and terminologist.