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Topic vs Term - What's the difference?

topic | term |

As nouns the difference between topic and term

is that topic is subject; theme; a category or general area of interest while term is term.

As an adjective topic

is (l).

topic

English

(wikipedia topic)

Alternative forms

* topick (obsolete)

Adjective

  • (l)
  • Noun

    (en noun)
  • Subject; theme; a category or general area of interest.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= The machine of a new soul , passage=The yawning gap in neuroscientists’ understanding of their topic is in the intermediate scale of the brain’s anatomy. Science has a passable knowledge of how individual nerve cells, known as neurons, work. It also knows which visible lobes and ganglia of the brain do what. But how the neurons are organised in these lobes and ganglia remains obscure. Yet this is the level of organisation that does the actual thinking—and is, presumably, the seat of consciousness.}}
  • (Internet) Discussion thread.
  • (obsolete) An argument or reason.
  • * Bishop Wilkins
  • contumacious persons, who are not to be fixed by any principles, whom no topics can work upon
  • (obsolete, medicine) An external local application or remedy, such as a plaster, a blister, etc.
  • (Wiseman)

    Synonyms

    * subject

    Derived terms

    * topical * subtopic * off-topic * topic map

    Anagrams

    * * *

    term

    English

    (wikipedia term)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Limitation, restriction or regulation. (rfex)
  • Any of the binding conditions or promises in a legal contract.
  • That which limits the extent of anything; limit; extremity; bound; boundary.
  • * Francis Bacon
  • Corruption is a reciprocal to generation, and they two are as nature's two terms , or boundaries.
  • (geometry) A point, line, or superficies that limits.
  • A line is the term''' of a superficies, and a superficies is the '''term of a solid.
  • A word or phrase, especially one from a specialised area of knowledge.
  • "Algorithm" is a term used in computer science.
  • Relations among people.
  • * , chapter=22
  • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=Not unnaturally, “Auntie” took this communication in bad part.
  • Part of a year, especially one of the three parts of an academic year.
  • (mathematics) Any value (variable or constant) or expression separated from another term by a space or an appropriate character, in an overall expression or table.
  • (logic) The subject or the predicate of a proposition; one of the three component parts of a syllogism, each one of which is used twice.
  • * Sir W. Hamilton
  • The subject and predicate of a proposition are, after Aristotle, together called its terms or extremes.
  • (architecture) A quadrangular pillar, adorned on top with the figure of a head, as of a man, woman, or satyr.
  • Duration of a set length; period in office of fixed length.
  • (computing) A terminal emulator, a program that emulates a video terminal.
  • (of a patent) The maximum period during which the patent can be maintained into force.
  • (astrology) An essential dignity in which unequal segments of every astrological sign have internal rulerships which affect the power and integrity of each planet in a natal chart.
  • (archaic) A menstrual period.
  • * 1660 , (Samuel Pepys), Diary
  • My wife, after the absence of her terms for seven weeks, gave me hopes of her being with child, but on the last day of the year she hath them again.
  • (nautical) A piece of carved work placed under each end of the taffrail.
  • Derived terms

    {{der3, at term , blanket term , collective term , come to terms , long-term , midterm , short-term , term limit , term logic , term of art , terms and conditions , umbrella term}}

    See also

    * idiom * lexeme * listeme * word

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To phrase a certain way, especially with an unusual wording.
  • *
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=September-October, author=(Henry Petroski)
  • , magazine=(American Scientist), title= The Evolution of Eyeglasses , passage=The ability of a segment of a glass sphere to magnify whatever is placed before it was known around the year 1000, when the spherical segment was called a reading stone, essentially what today we might term a frameless magnifying glass or plain glass paperweight.}}