Table 5.

Proportion of terms from in MeSH and GO containing parent terms, ancestor terms or other existing terms in their definitions

	All GO	All MeSH
Total	28 814	29 348
Terms with definition	99.1	96.0
Words in definition	24.3 (±15.3)	30.2 (±19.3)
Terms in definition	2.4 (±2.3)	5.7 (±4.1)
≥ 1 term in definition	88.0	97.2
≥ 1 ancestor in definition	54.1	56.2
≥ 1 parent in definition	15.8	36.6

Nearly all of GO an MeSH terms are defined. 54.1–56.2% of terms are defined via an ancestor, 15.8–36.6% via a parent term.