Thesaurus, taxonomy in SharePoint 2013

Question

Difference or similarity of concepts of thesaurus, taxonomy and synonyms in Sharepoint 2013.

I'm confused with theses concept used in SharePoint and blogs. Would someone points the major differences between theses concept in the scope of Sharepoint.

Afaik:

1. synonyms are flat csv files used for query extension.

2. taxonomy are termSet “A taxonomy is a hierarchical classification of words, labels, or terms that are organized into groups based on similarities.” (from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-server-help/introduction-to-managed-metadata-in-sharepoint-server-2010-HA101859256.aspx#_Toc263345230 )

could used as sitemap, query extension for synonyms

1. thesaurus :

"Use a thesaurus file to specify synonyms for a single word or multiple words that occur in queries. The query is expanded based on the entries in the thesaurus. You create and maintain the thesaurus file in a system external to SharePoint 2013 before you import it into SharePoint 2013 to make the synonyms available to the search system." ( from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219579.aspx#proc1 )

Should i anderstand that 'taxonomy' and 'thesaurus' seen from sharepoint are synonyms ?

Answer 1

"Taxonomy" by SP's definition is having terms defined in a hierarchical manor, similar to biological classifications (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_classification).

The benefit to a hierarchical taxonomy is that when it's applied to metadata, you can restrict the choices to specific sections, and when filtering data your results can be inclusive of child terms.

Synonyms only apply to the terms within your taxonomy.

Answer 2

To add a complementary answer, synonyms in a taxonomy are not searchable whereas synonyms in a thesaurus are searchable. Synonyms in a taxonomy seem to be used only when tagging a file or sorting using Key Filters.