A term is something you won't find in C,
Perl, Pascal or
Lisp but you will find it in functional programming
languages like Prolog for
example. It is a list plus a symbol, with the list written between
normal brackets. The term `alpha(17, true) denotes
a symbol `alpha and the list [ 17, true
] as parameters for that symbol.
This looks pretty much like a function call.
You can also use the term as a parameter in another function call, for example to specify a user dialog.
Example 2.9. Term constants
`like_function_call(17, true) `HBox(`Pushbutton(`Id(`ok), "OK"), `TextEntry(`Id(`name), "Name"))