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)