A term is a word or phrase with a stipulated definition within a particular domain. It names a thing — a stable relational configuration — and fixes the name’s meaning within that domain.
Terms are the atomic vocabulary of a knowledge system. A term file defines one word or phrase and its meaning. Unlike a concept, which develops an idea through exposition, a term establishes a definition. The distinction is between naming and explaining: a term says “X means Y,” while a concept says “here is what X involves and how it relates to other things.”
In the Peircean tradition, a term corresponds to a rheme (or term in Peirce’s own usage) — a sign that represents its object through a qualitative possibility. The term “handle,” for instance, names a specific thing in the interactive semioverse by fixing what that word picks out. The definition is the interpretant that stabilizes the sign-object relation.
Terms accumulate into vocabularies. A discipline’s terms/ directory
is its controlled vocabulary — the set of words whose meanings are
fixed for work in that discipline.