from
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)
semantic network
<data> A {graph} consisting of {nodes} that represent physical
or conceptual objects and arcs that describe the relationship
between the nodes, resulting in something like a data flow
diagram. Semantic nets are an effective way to represent data
as they incorporate the inheritance mechanism that prevents
duplication of data. That is, the meaning of a concept comes
from its relationship to other concepts and the information is
stored by interconnecting nodes with labelled arcs.
(1999-01-07)