Term

How to spell term

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce term

What does term mean?

1. nounA fixed or limited period of time, such as a school session, a length of office, or a sentence.
2. nounA word or phrase used to name or describe something, especially within a particular field.
3. nounA condition or stipulation forming part of an agreement, usually used in the plural.
4. verbTo give something a particular name or description.

Term in a sentence

• noun

  The spring term begins shortly after the new year.

• noun

  The manual defines each technical term in plain language.

• noun

  Every term of the contract was negotiated carefully.

• verb

  Experts term this rare condition a syndrome rather than a disease.

• noun

  The senator served a second term in office.

• noun

  Lawyers use that term to mean something very specific.

Where does term come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin terminus, which literally meant a boundary stone or limit, the marker that showed where one piece of land ended and another began. The Romans even worshipped a minor god named Terminus who guarded these boundary markers. Over time the sense of a fixed limit extended to limits in time, so a term came to mean a set period with a defined end, and from there a precise word that fixes or pins down a meaning. English took the word through Old French as 'terme' in the 1200s, originally for a limit or appointed time, and only later did the academic and vocabulary senses develop. The same root survives in 'terminal', 'terminate', and 'determine', all of which carry that core idea of an end or boundary. The spelling stays simple here, but note it ends in plain '-erm' with no silent letters, unlike its longer Latin relatives.

How the word is built

• term (from Latin terminus: a boundary, limit, or end point)