Plain-language field glossary

107 words that make a system easier to see.

Use the vocabulary to ask a sharper question—not to make a simple idea sound complicated.

A

Access: Who is allowed to join, perform or benefit.
Act: A bill after passage and assent.
Aggregator: Intermediary organising distributed output.
Announcement inflation: Intentions counted as though they were operating projects.
Average length of stay: Nights per booking.
Average room price (ADR): The average price earned from each room sold.

CAC: All-in customer acquisition cost.
Carrying capacity: Use a place can sustain without unacceptable damage.
Channel mix: Share sold through each route to market.
Clienteling: Long-term, individual relationship-based selling.
Cohort: Customers acquired in the same period, tracked together.
Collective bargaining: Negotiating as a group rather than alone.
Common application form: One filing that populates several applications.
Contribution margin: What remains from a sale after all direct and variable costs.
Counterfactual: What would likely have happened without the intervention.
Cupping: Structured tasting used to evaluate tea.
Curation: Choosing what to show and how to explain it.
Customer lifetime value: Profit across the relationship, not one transaction.

ETA: Estimated time of arrival.
Evidence against your idea: Information that challenges the explanation you currently prefer.
Example split: A simple example used to ask questions. It is not actual programme data.
Excise: State tax and regulation on alcohol.

F&I: Finance and insurance income attached to a sale.
Facilitation: Coordinating without replacing departmental authority.
Fill rate: The share of a dealer’s order delivered on time.
First-pass yield: Share of output accepted without rework.
Fixed operations: The parts and service side of a dealership.
Floor-plan finance: Borrowing used to hold vehicle stock; interest accrues daily.
Flush: A seasonal period of tea growth and plucking.

Handoff: The moment responsibility passes from one person or team to another.

Informal economy: Work and trade that may not run through large or fully formal organisations.
Inventory age: How long an item has remained unsold.
Inventory turns: How many times stock sells and is replaced in a year.
IP: Rights in stories, characters and formats.

Label registration: State approval of a product and price before sale.
Lead time: Elapsed time from commitment to finished delivery.
Liquidity: The probability of a fast, successful match between the two sides of a marketplace.
Lot: A traceable quantity offered as one unit.

Occupancy: Share of available capacity sold.
On-trade / off-trade: Bars and restaurants versus retail shops.
Onboard spend: Purchases after the ticket.
Orders per hour: How many orders a seller can prepare and serve in one hour.
Origin signal: Evidence that place is meaningfully connected to the product.

Payback period: Time until a cohort repays acquisition cost.
Piece rate: Payment for completed work rather than hours.
Power law: A distribution in which a very small number of outcomes produce most of the value.
Premiumisation: Shifting the mix towards higher-margin products.
Price discovery: Process by which market interaction produces a price.
Pro rata: Right to invest again to maintain ownership.
Provenance: The documented origin and history of a piece or product.
PUE: Power Usage Effectiveness: total facility power divided by power reaching computing equipment.

Rack utilisation: Share of saleable rack or power capacity occupied.
Realised price: Price actually achieved, not listed or hoped for.
Redundancy: Extra capacity that takes over after failure.
Regeneration: Improvement of ecological function, not merely lower harm.
Rejection: Output not accepted for payment or resale.
Repeatability: Ability to produce the same result cycle after cycle.
Representation: Who gets to explain a culture or practice, and how they choose to show it.
Reserve: Capital held for follow-on rounds.
Revenue mix: Share of income from different activities.
Revision: A clear statement of how your idea changed after the visit.
Rework: Correcting output that fails inspection.
Room revenue per available room (RevPAR): Room revenue spread across every room, including empty rooms.
Route to market: The permitted path from producer to consumer.

Safe visitor limit: The number of visitors a place can handle without harming the place or the experience.
Sell-in: Goods sold from a company into the dealer channel.
Sell-out: Goods sold from the dealer to the actual customer. Only this is real demand.
Sell-through: Share of received inventory sold.
Service recovery: How the hotel fixes a problem and rebuilds the guest’s trust.
Settlement: Transfer of money and title after the auction.
Share of value: How much of the visitor’s total spending each person keeps.
Shelf life: Time a product remains saleable at intended quality.
Single window: Coordinated access to many approvals through one contact point.
SKU: A distinct stock-keeping unit, such as one size or colour.
SLA: A contractual service-level commitment.
Slate: The portfolio in development and production.
Standing committee: A smaller cross-party body that can examine detail and evidence.
Stewardship: Caring for a place or practice so it stays protected over time.
Store contribution: Store revenue after its direct variable and controllable costs.
Subordinate legislation: Rules and notifications made under authority granted by an Act.
Synthesis: A new explanation made by connecting evidence from several visits.

Take rate: Platform share of transaction value.
Threshold: The point where you enter a different kind of space and change your behaviour.
Tolerance: Permitted variation from a specified dimension.
Tool life: Useful output before a die or mould needs repair.
Traceability: Ability to follow a piece back through its production history.
Traveller list: The official list of people or bags expected on the journey.
Trust signal: A clue that helps a visitor feel safe choosing a seller.
Turnaround: Hours between one voyage ending and the next boarding.
TVPI: Total value divided by capital paid in.

Validation: Testing that a product meets its intended specification.
Value beyond money: Meaning or benefit that cannot be properly measured through price or revenue.
Visitor flow: How many visitors move through the site in a set amount of time.

Waste rate: Share made but not sold.
Work allocation: How designs and quantities are assigned.
Work for hire: Production for a fee with the commissioner owning the result.
Working capital: Cash locked up in materials, stock and unpaid invoices before anyone has paid.