Schema Documentation - Generic Document Profile
version 1.0

The definition element

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The definition element represents a formal description of the meaning of a word, term, phrase, or other construct.

The definition element requires an xml:id attribute with a unique identifier for linking from the associated term.

Definitions that are not part of the document content may be placed in the document head .

Usage Example

<term ref="drw">Darwinism</term>:
<definition xml:id="drw">A theory of biological evolution developed 
  by <name>Charles Darwin</name> and others, stating that all species of 
  organisms arise …</definition>

Allowed parents

address, annoref, annotation (block variant), annotation (phrase variant), m:annotation-xml, aside (block variant), aside (toc variant), block, caption, citation (block variant), citation (phrase variant), d, definition, description (block variant), description (phrase variant), emph, entry (bibliography variant), entry (glossary variant), entry (index variant), entry (toc variant), expansion, xforms:group, h, hd, head, hpart, item, xforms:label, ln, d:longdesc, meta, note (block variant), note (phrase variant), noteref, object (block variant), object (phrase variant), sel:otherwise, p, ssml:phoneme, ssml:prosody, quote (block variant), quote (phrase variant), its:rb, ref, xforms:repeat, its:rt, s, ssml:say-as (phrase variant), ssml:say-as (text variant), d:simplifiedLanguageDescription, span, ssml:sub, d:summary, td, term, th, d:tour and sel:when

Allowed children

This element may contain text.

This element may contain the following children: abbr, address, annoref, annotation, ssml:break, char, citation, code, d, definition, emph (text variant), emph (phrase variant), expansion, xforms:input, rend:linebreak, ln, m:math, name, note, noteref, num, object (text variant), object (phrase variant), pagebreak, ssml:phoneme (text variant), ssml:phoneme (phrase variant), ssml:prosody (text variant), ssml:prosody (phrase variant), quote, xforms:range, ref, its:ruby, s, ssml:say-as (text variant), ssml:say-as (phrase variant), xforms:secret, sel:select, xforms:select, xforms:select1, span (text variant), span (phrase variant), sub, ssml:sub (text variant), ssml:sub (phrase variant), sup, term, xforms:textarea, time, ssml:token (text variant), ssml:token (phrase variant) and w

Content model and additional requirements

optional attributes: @about, @by, @class, @content, @continuation, @datatype, @desc, @its:dir, @its:translate, @property, @rel, @resource, @rev, @role, @sel:selid, @ssml:onlangfailure, @typeof, @xml:base, @xml:id, @xml:lang and @xml:space
optionally the following 2 co-ocurring attributes: @ssml:alphabet and @ssml:ph
one or more of
a choice of
either one of the 53 elements: abbr, address, annoref, annotation, char, citation, code, d, definition, emph, emph, expansion, its:ruby, ln, m:math, name, note, noteref, num, object, object, pagebreak, quote, ref, rend:linebreak, s, sel:select, span, span, ssml:break, ssml:break, ssml:phoneme, ssml:phoneme, ssml:prosody, ssml:prosody, ssml:say-as, ssml:say-as, ssml:sub, ssml:sub, ssml:token, ssml:token, sub, sup, term, time, w, w, xforms:input, xforms:range, xforms:secret, xforms:select, xforms:select1 or xforms:textarea
or text
end of choice
Note that in addition to restrictions presented in the content model above, use of this element must also respect the following requirement:
  • The definition element must neither be empty nor contain only whitespace.
Such requirements take precedence over any conflicting statements in the content model or in the lists above of allowed children and parents.

Namespace

http://www.daisy.org/ns/z3998/authoring/