Synonyms
A great addition to EMERSE is our large collection of manually curated terms and phrases that we collectively call "Synonyms". This dataset was created for term expansion, to help users find related concepts that they might otherwise miss. The Synonyms collection is a work in progress — new terms are added all the time. These terms are derived from a wide variety of sources including news articles, scientific abstracts, product release notes, and especially the search terms that users have typed into EMERSE over the years. It contains over 2.6 million unique rows. Among these rows, about 85% do not appear within the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) resource, which means that you'll be able to find a lot more with the EMERSE Synonyms than by using UMLS alone. The synonyms collection is extremely broad and contains a wide variety of terms related to diseases, medications (prescription, over-the-counter, herbal, etc), symptoms, infectious agents, test names, anatomical names, misspellings (>130,000 of them), and many other types of concepts. While formal relationships are not defined, the dataset has aspects similar to a "light-weight" ontology or knowledge graph (see network graphs, below). A subset of the types of categories, with examples, are also shown in the Examples table, below.
example: hypertension
Image showing the knowledge graph-like relationships among terms related to "hypertension". For more details, click the following links for a full size PDF or an interactive network diagram.
example: lymphoma
Image showing the knowledge graph-like relationships among terms related to "lymphoma". For more details, click the following links for a full size PDF or an interactive network diagram.
EMERSE "Synonyms" Examples
| Category* | Examples |
| Acronyms | • ALL, acute lymphoblastic leukemia • ESRD, end stage renal disease • CXR, chest x-ray |
| Abbreviations | • chemotherapy, chemo • ventilator, vent • shoulder pain, shld pain |
| Professional and consumer terms | • myocardial infarction, heart attack • alopecia, hair loss • emesis, puking |
| Misspellings | • ventilator, ventilater ventalator • pneumoina, pneuomnia, pneuomonia • diarriea, diahhrea, diarhea |
| American English & British English spelling | • anesthesia, anaesthesia • anemic, anaemic • virilization, virilisation |
| Trade and generic drug names | • Tylenol, acetaminophen • Prilosec, omeprazole • Zoloft, sertraline |
| Species | • Staphylococcus aureus, staph aureus, S aureus • thrush, Candida albicans, C albicans • roundworm, Ascaris lumbricoides, A lumbricoides |
| Chemotherapy regimens | • CHOP, cyclophosphamide, hydroxydaunorubicin, oncovin, prednisone • CFAR, cytoxan, fludarabine, alemtuzumab, rituximab • FOLFOX, folinic acid, fluorouracil, oxaliplatin |
| Word stems | • pain, painful, painfully • sleep, sleeping, sleepy • test, tested, testing |
| True synonyms | • frigid, cold, freezing • break, shatter, fracture • sandal, shoe, footwear |
| Phrasing variations | • lidocaine with epinephrine • lido w/ epi • epi-lidocaine |
| Malapropisms/usage errors | • beast mass • prostrate cancer • horse voice |
| Root word variations | • adenotonsillectomy, tonsilloadenoidectomy • hepatopancreatobiliary, pancreatohepatobiliary • trichophytobezoar, phytotrichobezoar |
| Hyphenations | • pseudosarcomatous, pseudo-sarcomatous • polyradiculoneuropathy, poly-radiculoneuropathy, poly-radiculo-neuropathy |
| Idioms | • under the knife • under the weather • frog in her throat |
| Neologisms | • trabecularity (instead of trabeculation) • misinnervation, dysinnervation, malinnervation |
| Organizations | • AMA, American Medical Association • COG, Children's Oncology Group • SAEM, Society for Academic Emergency Medicine |
| Companies | • Moderna Therapeutics, biotechnology company • Neuronetics, medical device company • Omthera, pharmaceutical company |
* Note that the dataset does not formally label each element with the categories listed above. Rather, the terms are simply connected due to whatever relevant relationship they have with one another.
Some terms are included that clinicians may not even consider to be real terms. For example, menorrhagia is considered a synonym of hypermenorrhea. These two terms are are also grouped with hypermenorrhagia, the latter of which is not a true medical term but nevertheless appears in the clinical notes of more than 500 of our patients.
Within EMERSE, Synonyms are used as system-provided suggestions, but users can always include their own terms in their searches. Additionally, it is possible for EMERSE system administrators to include additional terms that would then be available to all users of the system, perhaps needed for unique local terminologies.
Screen shot from EMERSE showing an example of Synonyms displayed for a user who was initially searching for the phrase "back pain"
Additional Examples of terms found in the Synonyms collection:
nausea or vomiting
nausea/vomiting
emesis
emeses
vomiter
vomiters
vomitive
vomitory
vomiting
vomited
vomits
vomit
vomitus
retching
retched
retches
retch
nauseousness
nauseous
nauseating
nauseates
nauseated
nauseate
nausea
queasiness
queasy
hurling
hurled
hurls
hurl
hurler
barfing
barfed
barfs
barf
barfer
tossing cookies
blowing chunks
throwing chunks
throwing up
throws up
threw up
throw up
threw it all up
threw it up
throws it all up
throws it up
throw it all up
throw it up
throwing it all up
throwing it up
puking
puked
pukes
puke
puker
up-chucking
up-chucked
up-chucks
up-chuck
upchucking
upchucked
upchucks
upchuck
purging
purged
purges
purge
purger
ralphs
ralph
chundering
chundered
chunders
chunder
regurgitating
regurgitated
regurgitates
regurgitate
N and V
N & V
N&V
N/V
NV
dry heaving
dry heaved
dry heaves
dry heave
heaving
heaved
heaves
heave
reverse peristalsis
emisis [spelling alternative]
emsis [spelling alternative]
queaziness [spelling alternative]
nause and vomitting [spelling alternative]
95% of the terms above appear in the medical record at least once
rhinorrhea
runny nose
stuffiness
stuffy nose
stuffy
stuffed up nose
stuffed up
plugged up
coryza
rhinitis
sniffles
sniffle
nasal congestion
nose congested
congestion
congested nose
congested
nasal drainage
snotty nose
mucous drainage
nasal dripping
nasal drips
nasal drip
nasal stuffiness
nasal stuffy
rhinoherra [spelling alternative]
rhinnorhea [spelling alternative]
rhonorrhea [spelling alternative]
rhinorhea [spelling alternative]
rhinorrea [spelling alternative]
rhinorreha [spelling alternative]
rhinnitis [spelling alternative]
rhinits [spelling alternative]
97% of the terms above appear in the medical record at least once
scaphotrapezotrapezoid
scaphotrapeziumtrapezoid
scaphotrapezium-trapezoidal
scaphotrapezium-trapezoid
scaphotrapeziotrapezoidal
scaphotrapeziotrapezoid
scaphotrapeziotrapezial
scaphotrapezialtrapezoidal
scaphoid-trapezoid-trapezium
scaphoid-trapezoid-trapezial
scaphoid-trapezium-trapezoidal
scaphoid-trapezium-trapezoid
scaphoid-trapezium-trapezium
scaphoid-trapeziotrapezoidal
scaphoid-trapezio-trapezoidal
scaphoid-trapezio-trapezoid
scaphoid-trapezial-trapezoidal
scaphoid-trapezial-trapezoid
scapho-trapezoidal-trapezial
scapho-trapezoid-trapezium
scapho-trapezo-trapezoid
scapho-trapezium-trapezoidal
scapho-trapezium-trapezoid
scapho-trapeziotrapezoidal
scapho-trapezio-trapezoidal
scapho-trapezio-trapezoid
scapho-trapezial-trapezoidal
scapho-trapezial-trapezoid
100% of the terms above appear in the medical record at least once
itching his skin
itching the skin
itching skin
itchy skin
skin was itchy
skin is itchy
itch (pruritus)
pruritus (itch)
pruritis
pruritic
skin itchiness
skin itching
skin itches
skin itchy
skin itch
itchier
itchiest
itchiness
itching
itched
itches
itchy
itch
prurities [spelling alternative]
pruritius [spelling alternative]
pruitis [spelling alternative]
pruitus [spelling alternative]
pruiritic [spelling alternative]
pruiritis [spelling alternative]
puristis [spelling alternative]
pruritus [spelling alternative]
prutitis [spelling alternative]
puritic [spelling alternative]
puritis [spelling alternative]
pruritid [spelling alternative]
itcvhing [spelling alternative]
itchingh [spelling alternative]
puritus [spelling alternative]
pruritics [spelling alternative]
98% of the terms above appear in the medical record at least once
urinary osmolarity
ur osmolarities
urine osmolarity
ur osmolarity
urinary osmolalities
urinary osmolality
urine osmolalities
urine osmolality
ur osmolality
urinary osmoles
urinary osmole
urinary osmols
urinary osmol
urine osmoles
urine osmole
urine osmols
urinary osms
urinary osm
ur osmols
ur osmol
urine osmol
urine osms
urine osm
UrOsms
UrOsm
UrOsmol
ur osms
ur osm
uOsms
uOsm
90% of the terms above appear in the medical record at least once
Licensing
The Synonyms were created specifically to help with term matching within EMERSE, but the dataset clearly has utility for other tasks including text mining, information retrieval (IR), natural language processing (NLP), machine learning (ML), and artificial intelligence (AI)/large language models (LLMs). The Synonyms collection can be licensed from the University of Michigan Office of Innovation Partnerships. Both Academic and Commercial Licenses are available, including a no-cost license for research use within an EMERSE installation. For more information about the Synonyms, or to see a sample dataset, please Contact the EMERSE team. For details about licensing opportunities, please visit the medsynonyms.com page.
Additional Data Sets
In addition to the EMERSE Synonyms Collection, other datasets have been formatted to work within EMERSE. These are described below and are available for download at no cost.
Journal Titles and Abbreviations
A list of journal titles and their MedLine abbreviations. This can be useful for searching documents for mentions of literature citations.
Source: National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) (link)
Total data rows: 61,002
Unique data rows: 60,748
Last updated: 2018-05-01
MeSH Terms
MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) terms are a controlled vocabulary used for organizing biomedical literature such as PubMed and other database.
Source: National Library of Medicine (NLM), MeSH 2018 dataset (link)
Total data rows: 1,445,217
Unique data rows: 803,637
Last updated: 2018-05-01
Occupations (Dataset 1)
A list of occupations, which may be useful if trying to find occupation data for patients. Searching for synonyms of 'occupation' will bring up the list within EMERSE.
Source: Careerplanner.com (link)
Total data rows: 27,954
Unique data rows: 14,707
Last updated: 2018-07-12
Occupations (Dataset 2)
A list of occupations, which may be useful if trying to find occupation data for patients. Searching for synonyms of 'occupation' will bring up the list within EMERSE.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2017 dataset (link)
Total data rows: 7,226
Unique data rows: 1,990
Last updated: 2018-07-12
EMERSE Synonyms Collection
The Synonym Collection described on this page, created specifically for use within EMERSE, but has many uses for other types of clinical/health-related applications. Contact Us for Academic or Commercial Licensing.
Source: EMERSE project (link)
Total data rows: 3.3 million
Unique data rows: 2.6 million
Last updated: Approximately monthly