Termstos

Termstos is a standardized data model and repository for terminology management used in multilingual and technical contexts. It provides a formal schema for organizing terms and their semantic relationships, enabling consistent terminology across languages and domains.

Entries in Termstos consist of fields such as term, language, part of speech, domain, definition, usage notes, and provenance. Each term can link to related terms through relationships like synonyms, translations, antonyms, and hierarchical connections (hyponyms and hypernyms). Terms are grouped into concepts, forming a network that supports cross-language alignment.

History and development: Termstos was proposed in the early 2010s by a consortium of linguists and software engineers seeking to improve interoperability between terminology databases and translation systems. It has evolved through several drafts and versions, with modern serializations emphasizing JSON-LD and SKOS-compatible structures.

Applications: In localization, technical writing, and knowledge management, Termstos supports glossary creation, term validation, and automated consistency checks. It also serves in linguistic research and in building multilingual knowledge graphs.

Relation to standards: Termstos remains one among terminology-management approaches and is designed to interoperate with established standards such as SKOS and TBX, through mapping relations and crosswalks.

See also SKOS, TBX, Terminology management, Localization.