database
1. One or more large structured sets of persistent
data, usually associated with software to update and {query}
the data. A simple database might be a single file containing
many {records}, each of which contains the same set of
{fields} where each field is a certain fixed width.
A database is one component of a {database management system}.
See also {ANSI/SPARC Architecture}, {atomic}, {blob}, {data
definition language}, {deductive database}, {distributed
database}, {fourth generation language}, {functional
database}, {object-oriented database}, {relational database}.
{(http://www.bus.orst.edu/faculty/brownc/lectures/db_tutor/db_tutor.htm