propertiesentities

Propertiesentities is a concept used in data modeling and knowledge representation to describe how objects or subjects (entities) are defined by a collection of attributes (properties). The term is not tied to a single formal standard, but to a modeling pattern in which an entity's identity is separate from its mutable properties. In this pattern, properties can be added or removed over time without changing the entity's core identity.

In practice, a propertiesentities model treats entities as containers of property key‑value pairs. Values may be primitive types such as strings and numbers, or complex structures such as lists or nested objects. In graph-oriented implementations, entities may be nodes with a set of property bags rather than fixed columns.

Examples include a customer record where the identity is the customer ID and properties include name, email, and preferences; or a product node with properties like name, price, category, and ratings. Relationships between entities are modeled either as separate edges or as specialized properties, depending on the database paradigm.

Applications span schema-flexible databases, metadata repositories, and semantic integration work where evolving requirements favor adding new properties. The approach is closely related to property graphs, document stores, and ontology-based modeling, and it often contrasts with rigid entity-relationship schemas that fix a fixed set of attributes. See also property graph, RDF, document store, ontology, data modeling, and entity-relationship model.