1. a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of being, existence, or reality
Usage: philosophy
2. a particular theory about the nature of being or the kinds of things that have existence
Usage: philosophy
3. a set of concepts and categories in a subject area that shows their properties and the relations between them
Usage: computer science; information science

Examples

• The philosophy course covered ontology and epistemology.
• Plato’s ontology included the theory of Forms.
• Different cultures may have varying ontologies about what constitutes reality.
• The database uses an ontology to organize medical terminology.
• Researchers developed an ontology for classifying biological data.
• The semantic web relies on ontologies to structure information.
• His ontology rejected the existence of abstract objects.