A graph consisting of nodes that represent physICal or conceptual objects and arcs that describe the relationship between the nodes, resulting in something like a data flow diagram. SemantIC nets are an effective way to represent data as they incorporate the inheritance mechanism that prevents duplICation of data. That is, the meaning of a concept comes from its relationship to other concepts and the information is stored by interconnecting nodes with labelled arcs. (1999-01-07)