{"id":976,"date":"2022-09-12T18:33:12","date_gmt":"2022-09-12T18:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glossary.dream.press\/glossary\/%group%\/term\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T08:49:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T08:49:15","slug":"term","status":"publish","type":"glossary","link":"https:\/\/glossary.dream.press\/glossary\/wordpress\/term\/","title":{"rendered":"Term"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Terms are the items inside a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dreamhost.com\/glossary\/wordpress\/taxonomy\/\">taxonomy<\/a>, the system WordPress uses to group related posts. Think of the taxonomy as the parent grouping and each term as one entry filed under it. <a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/documentation\/article\/taxonomies\/\">WordPress.org\u2019s documentation<\/a> describes taxonomies as the \u201cparent\u201d and terms as the \u201cchildren.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Terms group similar posts so related content is easier to find, and a single <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dreamhost.com\/glossary\/wordpress\/post\/\">post<\/a> can carry terms from several taxonomies. On a food blog, for example, a post can be assigned the terms Baking and Recipes from a Cooking taxonomy, plus Chocolate and Cake from a separate Desserts taxonomy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Terms vs. taxonomies, categories, and tags<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Every <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dreamhost.com\/glossary\/wordpress\/category\/\">category<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dreamhost.com\/glossary\/wordpress\/tag\/\">tag<\/a> on your site is a term. Categories and Tags are the two taxonomies WordPress includes by default, so they\u2019re the terms you\u2019ve been using all along. Here\u2019s how the pieces fit together:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1536\" height=\"1024\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.dreamhost.com\/glossary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/wordpress-taxonomy-term-hierarchy-dreamops-4e7667806ced044c42d8c713.webp\" alt=\"A tree showing WordPress's two built-in taxonomies with example terms inside each: the Categories taxonomy holds a Desserts term with a nested Cakes child term, while the Tags taxonomy holds Chocolate and Cake terms side by side at the same level, illustrating that categories can nest but tags stay flat.\" class=\"wp-image-11827 lazyload\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/glossary.dream.press\/glossary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/wordpress-taxonomy-term-hierarchy-dreamops-4e7667806ced044c42d8c713.webp 1536w, https:\/\/glossary.dream.press\/glossary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/wordpress-taxonomy-term-hierarchy-dreamops-4e7667806ced044c42d8c713-300x200.webp 300w, https:\/\/glossary.dream.press\/glossary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/wordpress-taxonomy-term-hierarchy-dreamops-4e7667806ced044c42d8c713-1024x683.webp 1024w, https:\/\/glossary.dream.press\/glossary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/wordpress-taxonomy-term-hierarchy-dreamops-4e7667806ced044c42d8c713-768x512.webp 768w, https:\/\/glossary.dream.press\/glossary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/wordpress-taxonomy-term-hierarchy-dreamops-4e7667806ced044c42d8c713-600x400.webp 600w, https:\/\/glossary.dream.press\/glossary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/wordpress-taxonomy-term-hierarchy-dreamops-4e7667806ced044c42d8c713-1200x800.webp 1200w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 1536px) 100vw, 1536px\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 1536px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 1536\/1024;\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Taxonomy<\/strong>: the grouping system itself. WordPress ships with Categories and Tags, and themes or plugins can register more.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Term<\/strong>: one item inside a taxonomy, with its own name and slug, plus an archive page when its taxonomy is public and queryable.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Category or tag<\/strong>: a term that belongs to one of the two built-in taxonomies. A Desserts category and a chocolate tag are both terms.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Parent and child terms<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Terms can nest, but only inside a hierarchical taxonomy. In WordPress, \u201chierarchical\u201d has a narrow technical meaning: it describes whether the terms within a taxonomy can have parent and child terms, not the relationship between a taxonomy and its items. Categories are hierarchical, so a Desserts category can hold a Cakes subcategory, and visitors who click the parent category\u2019s link see posts from it and all its children. Tags are flat: every tag sits at the same level. Developers set this behavior when registering a custom taxonomy with <a href=\"https:\/\/developer.wordpress.org\/reference\/functions\/register_taxonomy\/\"><code>register_taxonomy()<\/code><\/a>, whose hierarchical argument defaults to false.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Creating and managing terms<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You don\u2019t need code to create terms. For the built-in taxonomies, go to Posts > Categories or Posts > Tags in the WordPress dashboard to add, rename, or delete terms, or add them from the sidebar of the post editor while you write. Custom taxonomies that register an admin UI appear as a submenu of the post type they\u2019re attached to. Developers can also create terms programmatically with the <code>wp_insert_term()<\/code> function.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One habit to avoid: creating a new term for every small variation. Near-duplicates like Recipes, Recipe, and My Recipes split the same posts across three thin archive pages and fragment your navigation. Reuse an existing term when one fits, and periodically merge or delete terms that only cover one or two posts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Term archive pages<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For public taxonomies like categories and tags, clicking a term takes visitors to a term archive page that lists every post assigned that term. WordPress builds the archive\u2019s URL from the term\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dreamhost.com\/glossary\/seo\/slug\/\">slug<\/a>, the URL-friendly version of its name, so a Desserts category typically lives at example.com\/category\/desserts\/. Custom taxonomies can skip all of this: the public, publicly_queryable, and rewrite arguments of <code>register_taxonomy()<\/code> let developers register a taxonomy with no front-end archive at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_focuskw":"","_yoast_wpseo_title":"What is a Term in WordPress? %%sep%% %%sitename%%","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"A term in WordPress is one item in a taxonomy, such as a single category or tag. Learn how terms group posts, power archive pages, and how to add them.","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-description":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-description":""},"group":[18],"class_list":["post-976","glossary","type-glossary","status-publish","hentry","group-wordpress"],"acf":{"cta":"Managed WP Hosting","faqs":[{"question":"What happens when I delete a term in WordPress?","answer":"The term is removed, but your posts stay. If the term had a public archive page, that page also stops working. If a post's only category is deleted, WordPress reassigns it to the default category set under Settings > Writing, which can't be deleted. Deleted tags disappear from their posts."},{"question":"Can two taxonomies have terms with the same name?","answer":"Yes. WordPress only blocks duplicate term names within the same taxonomy, so a Chocolate category and a Chocolate tag can coexist as two separate terms. Each one is edited from its own taxonomy's screen, and deleting one doesn't remove the other."},{"question":"Is there a limit to how many terms a taxonomy can have?","answer":"No. WordPress's documentation says you can create an unlimited amount of terms. The practical limit is usability: keep the list short enough for visitors to scan, and prefer terms that will each group several posts."}],"term_definition":"A term in WordPress is a single item within a taxonomy, the system WordPress uses to group related posts. Every category and tag on your site is a term. Assigning terms to a post files it with similar content, making related posts easier for visitors to find.","h2_more":"More About Terms","title_tag":"What is a Term in WordPress?"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>What is a Term in WordPress? - DreamHost Glossary<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A term in WordPress is one item in a taxonomy, such as a single category or tag. 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