Glossary

Taxonomy Term	Synonym	Block.one Definition
Account		An on-chain identifier made up of native and/or custom permissions that are assigned one or more keys or accounts.
Authority		An abstract of permissions that represent how permissions are organized in reality that are bound to an individual or groups of individuals
Block	Blk	A confirmable unit of the Blockchain. Each block contains zero or more Transactions, as well as a cryptographic connection to all prior blocks. When a block becomes "irreversibly confirmed" it's because a supermajority of Block Producers have agreed that the given Block contains correct Transactions. Once a Block is irreversibly confirmed, it becomes a permanent part of the immutable Blockchain.
DAC		Decentralized Autonomous Collective, or Decentralized Autonomous Corporation. Described in detail here (need link).
DAO		Decentralized Autonomous Organization.
Deferred Transaction	defTx	A transaction that is created by a smart contract for later execution at a specific future time. This future transaction can also create another future transaction to happen after itself. Thus, the deferred transaction opens the door to creating infinite loops. The user authorizing the deferred transaction must have the bandwidth to execute that future transaction (this is evaluated when it's scheduled), and the storage to store it until executed.
DLTs		Distributed Ledger Technologies. A distributed ledger (also called a shared ledger, or referred to as distributed ledger technology) is a consensus of replicated, shared, and synchronized digital data geographically spread across multiple sites, countries, or institutions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_ledger
DPoS		Delegated Proof of Stake. Also, "Democracy as Proof of Stake." DPoS is one of a collection of consensus algorithms, i.e. methods by which block producers can agree (reach consensus) on which transactions and which blocks are "real" and should be confirmed and treated as irreversible.
Key pair	keys	A public key and its corresponding private key
larimer		1/10000 of an EOS (token) 0.0001 EOS
Master Password		The password used to unlock (decrypt) a wallet file
Action		A change to the Blockchain. One or more actions make up a Transaction.
Non-Producing Node		A full node running nodeos that is only watching and verifying for itself each block, and maintaining its own local full copy of the blockchain. A non-producing node that is in the "standby pool" can, through the process of being voted in, become a producing node. A producing node, if voted out, will become a non-producing node. Most non-producing nodes are not in the "standby pool".
Oracle		"An oracle, in the context of blockchains and smart contracts, is an agent that finds and verifies real-world occurrences and submits this information to a blockchain to be used by smart contracts." Source
peer-to-peer	p2p	peer-to-peer computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application. They are said to form a peer-to-peer network of nodes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-peer
Permission		A weighted security mechanism that determines whether or not a message is properly authorized by evaluating its signature(s) authority
Private Key		A secret key used to sign transactions
Public Key	pub key	A publicly available key that is transmitted alongside a transaction
Scope		Scope is a region of data within a contract. Contracts can only write to regions in their own contracts but they can read from any contract's regions. Proper scoping allows transactions to run in parallel for the same contract because they do not write to the same regions. Scope is not conflated with an account name, but contracts can use the same value for both for convenience.
Smart Contract		A smart contract is a computer protocol intended to facilitate, verify, or enforce the negotiation or performance of a contract.
Standby Pool		A set of about 100 full nodes that have expressed the desire to be selected as block producers, and are capable of doing so on demand. Whenever the chain needs to replace an existing BP with a new one, the new one is drawn from the standby pool.
Transaction	Tx, Txn	A complete all-or-nothing change to the Blockchain. A combination of one or more Messages. Usually, the execution of a Smart Contract.
Wallet		An encrypted file generated and/or managed by a client (for example, cleos) that manages private keys and facilitates the signing of transactions in a secure manner. Wallets may be in a locked or unlocked state.
Block Producer	bp	The node that is currently taking its turn producing the "right now" block for the blockchain. Or, a member of the group of nodes who have been elected to take such turns. Synonymous with 'block producer'