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noun

ontology

(computer science) a rigorous and exhaustive organization of some knowledge domain that is usually hierarchical and contains all the relevant entities and their relations

In a sentence

Six example sentences with ontology, each labelled with its topic.

  • The team published an ontology for medical devices so every vendor's catalog could map onto the same parent categories.

    Technology

  • A shared gene ontology lets two labs compare results even when each names the same protein differently.

    Science

  • Building an ontology forces awkward choices: is a contract a thing, an event, or merely a relation between parties?

    Philosophy

  • Hospitals code diagnoses against a shared medical ontology so that a chart written in Lisbon is readable in Toronto.

    Medicine

  • The retailer built a product ontology so that a raincoat lands under outerwear whether the supplier called it a jacket or a coat.

    Business

  • Banks adopted a common finance ontology so regulators could compare a swap booked in London with one booked in Chicago.

    Finance

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