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(In _____ terms, ...)

  • What should be in the blank space? A noun or an adjective or something else?
  • If we can use both of them, what is the difference, if any?
  1. He's really tight-fisted, I mean in money terms, he is not very generous.

  2. He's really tight-fisted, I mean in financial terms, he is not very generous with money.

In this regard, I wonder whether these kinds of sentences are true or not:

A: In histology terms, striated muscle tissue is a muscle tissue that features repeating functional units called sarcomeres, in contrast with smooth muscle tissue which does not.

B: In business terms, stock exchange means: units of equal value into which a company is divided and sold to raise money(also called stock market)

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  • In {noun} terms is a fairly casual, conversational pattern and it is advisable not to emulate it in formal writing contexts. In terms of its histology, .... or In histological terms, ... would be how you'd normally find the phrase in a carefully written text.
    – TimR
    Commented Aug 10, 2018 at 17:36
  • A stock exchange (or stock market) is an organization (or physical place or cybernetic place) in which shares of stock are bought-and-sold. The shares are the units of value.
    – Jasper
    Commented Aug 10, 2018 at 23:57
  • @Tᴚoɯɐuo Could you be more specific about what I'm looking for? I wonder if the grammar here, is not strictly correct(think we're talking about spoken English) : In biology terms,... OR somthing like this: "In Jasper terms, a stock exchange (or stock market) is an organization (or physical place or cybernetic place) in which shares of stock are bought-and-sold. The shares are the units of value." (What I mean is: It's abvious that we cannot use all kinds of nouns) so my question is: What kind of noun would you prefer?
    – a.RR
    Commented Aug 11, 2018 at 3:18
  • I would not prefer a noun. I'd say "In terms of its histology" or "In the context of equity trading..."
    – TimR
    Commented Aug 11, 2018 at 13:01
  • @Tᴚoɯɐuo What about: "In terms of histology"
    – a.RR
    Commented Aug 11, 2018 at 14:13

2 Answers 2

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(“In … terms” structure) What should be in the blank space?

Answer: an adjective, modifying "terms".

In English, you can use nouns as adjectives, so a noun is also possible. However, as mentioned in the comments, "In {noun} terms is a fairly casual, conversational pattern". The proper choice would be an adjective.

The question was also answered on this stackexchange post in the same way, as follows.

The general forms are either:
1. In terms of [Noun]
2. In [Adjective] terms.

Next, you asked about specific sentences:

A: In histology terms
B: In business terms

For these sentences, using a noun in that position appears to be a fairly casual, conversational pattern, and not formally correct.

What kind of noun would you prefer?

Nouns are not preferred. However, to proceed and answer the question anyway, the word should be the appropriate one for the situation, and that applies to language in general, not only to the phrase "in [__] terms". For example,

What kind of noun would you prefer in the phrase "The fast ___"?

"The fast car" would make sense. "The fast pillow" would usually not make sense. So, "what kind of noun would you prefer?" - one that makes sense in the sentence.

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Both nouns and adjectives can be used.

When a noun is used to describe (or "modify") another noun, it is being used as an adjective and is referred to as an "adjectival noun".

This is fine.

For clarity and ease of reading, it is best to use the adjectival form of a noun if one exists (e.g. "biological" in the expression "in biological terms") rather than using a noun itself as an adjectival noun (e.g. "in biology terms").

Another example: "In financial terms..." is better than "In finance terms..." or "In money terms..."

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