Ontology

Definition

In philosophy and linguistics, the study of the nature of being or existence; what entities exist and what their fundamental categories are. In computer science and information systems, it refers to a formal representation of knowledge showing relationships between concepts and entities within a specific domain.

Example Usage

The software engineer designed an ontology to map all customer interactions and their properties.

Origin

From Greek 'on' (being) and '-logia' (study of), coined in the 17th century by philosophers.

Fun Fact

Ontologies are critical to artificial intelligence and knowledge graphs like Google's Knowledge Graph, which uses formal ontologies to understand and organize information.

Source: Definition backfill (hailey)

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