synonym ring

information science A list of words with related meanings

used to broaden the scope of a word search. As well as

returning documents which contain a sought-for word a search

using a synonym ring might also return documents which contain

words in the same synonym ring as a sought-for word. Synonym

rings are produced manually and are usually specific to a

certain field, e.g. legal knowhow.

(1997-04-09)