. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2021 Sep 17.

Published in final edited form as: Annu Rev Nurs Res. 2010;28:253–294. doi: 10.1891/0739-6686.28.253

TABLE 10.1.

Terms, Definitions, and Standardized Languages

Term	Definition

ANA Core Criteria (nursing language criteria and definitions)	Support practice, clinically useful and unambiguous; systematic method of development, documented testing, and continued refinement, maintained on a regular basis. These criteria need to be present in all data sets, terminologies, or classifications
Class	A group, division, category, or set used to categorize or classify information
Classification	A way to arrange items (e.g., defining characteristics) based on relationships and assignment of names (e.g., interventions and outcomes) to groups of items
Data Set	Grouping of identified elements of particular interest within a context
Domain	The most abstract term in a taxonomy (e.g., functional domain)
Nomenclature	Terms that can be combined to represent more complex concepts; informed by preestablished rules
Taxonomy	Organization of concepts based on similarities into a conceptual framework
Terminology	Words for a concept or the vocabulary used to communicate a concept