Lexicon · The human story of meaning
Concept
Fully specified name: Concept (concept)
A unit of meaning represented within a knowledge system.
- Scope note
- Concepts and their names need separate records.
- Synonyms
- None recorded as true synonyms in this context.
- Monograph
- Ontology (draft)
- External mappings
- None recorded. In W0 no mapping to SNOMED CT® or any external authority is asserted for this entry. A future mapping record will carry source system, identifier, version, relation type, evidence, author, confidence where meaningful, and review state.
- Formal status
- Editorial entry only. It is not part of any released ontology and a prose edit here changes no formal definition.
Draft. This entry is an unreviewed draft. Its sources have not been checked by a named person and no domain reviewer has approved it. Treat every claim as provisional.
Notes
A concept is the thing meant, as distinct from any word used to mean it. "Prostate-specific membrane antigen," its abbreviation, and its gene-based name are three labels; the protein they denote is one concept. A knowledge system that stores only labels cannot tell when two labels coincide, and one that stores only concepts cannot talk to people. The scope note therefore asks for separate records: a concept record with an Identifier, and one or more term records that name it, each marked as preferred or alternative in a stated context.
The word is used differently across disciplines. In philosophy and cognitive science a concept is a mental or abstract category whose status is itself debated. In terminology work a concept is an editorial unit with an identifier, a definition, and relationships, as in SNOMED CT's logical model. In software it may be nothing more than a row in a table. NucLex uses the terminology sense: a concept is what an entry in the lexicon describes, and the entry's local editorial ID refers to it, not to its label.