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term

noun · verb

Simple meaning

That which limits the extent of anything.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

turm
US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈtɝm

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. That which limits the extent of anything; limit, extremity, bound, boundary, terminus.

  2. A chronological limitation or restriction, a limited timespan.

  3. A word or expression used for some particular thing

  4. A word or phrase (e.g., noun phrase, verb phrase, open compound), especially one from a specialised area of knowledge; a name for a concept.

  5. Any of the binding conditions or promises in a legal contract.

  6. Duration of officeholding, or its limit; period in office of fixed length.

verb

  1. transitive

    To phrase a certain way; to name or call.

  2. transitiveinformalof an online moderator

    To delete someone's account.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
A1 · Beginner
Frequency
Very Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: That which limits the extent of anything; limit, extremity, bound, boundary, terminus.

Used this way, term is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use term

  • “He learned many medical terms.”noun

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Word

generic term

Duration

short term

Other combinations

long termsecond termfirst termterm memoryterm careyear term

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • termsnounPlural form

    Status with respect to the relations between people or groups.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • term insurancenounCompound term

    Low-cost insurance that is valid only for a stated period of time and has no cash surrender value or loan value.

  • term infantnounCompound term

    Infant born at a gestational age between 37 and 42 completed weeks.

  • term of a contractnounCompound term

    The period of time during which a contract conveying property to a person is in effect.

  • term of enlistmentnounCompound term

    A period of time spent in military service.

  • term of officenounCompound term

    The term during which some position is held.

  • term papernounCompound term

    A composition intended to indicate a student's progress during a school term.

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.