Term Lookup Service

This service provides a REST interface to the terms found in the EPA's Terminology Services.

POST and GET requests can be made to http://termlookup.epa.gov:80/termlookup/v1/terms.

Swagger Specification

Parameters

Name Description
text This is the block of text that will be analyzed for matching terms. If set to "terrestrial radiation", matches for "terrestrial", "radiation", and "terrestrial radiation" will appear for each of the terms that are found in the database.
callback The callback function used for JSONP requests. When this parameter is not present, the results will be a JSON object. When this parameter is set, the results will be a function call with the name of the function being the value of the callback parameter and the JSON object passed as an argument to that function. For example, a typical result may be {…}, but if callback is set to "myFunction", the results will be myFunction({…}).
glossary The name of the glossary to pull terms from. When present, results will be limited to terms defined in this glossary only. When the parameter is omitted, results will include terms from all available glossaries.

Results

{
  "matches": [   // Array of match objects, one for each term that contains a match
    {
      "index": [...],    // Array of indices in the input text where term was found
      "term": "",        // The term that was matched
      "definitions": [   // Array of definitions for the term
        {
          "definition": "",  // Definition for the term
          "dictionary": ""   // Name of the Dictionary/Glossary source of definition
        },
        ...
      ]
    },
    ...
}

Sample URLs

http://termlookup.epa.gov:80/termlookup/v1/terms?text=air pollution

http://termlookup.epa.gov:80/termlookup/v1/terms?text=terrestrial radiation

http://termlookup.epa.gov:80/termlookup/v1/terms?text=Natural gas plays a key role in our nation's clean energy future. The U.S. has vast reserves of natural gas that are commercially viable as a result of advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies enabling greater access to gas in shale formations. Responsible development of America's shale gas resources offers important economic, energy security, and environmental benefits.

http://termlookup.epa.gov:80/termlookup/v1/terms?text=Natural gas plays a key role in our nation's clean energy future. The U.S. has vast reserves of natural gas that are commercially viable as a result of advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies enabling greater access to gas in shale formations. Responsible development of America's shale gas resources offers important economic, energy security, and environmental benefits.&glossary=Greenhouse Emissions Glossary

Demo

Try it out for yourself. Enter text into the search field below and then click Search. A call will be made to the service and the results will be displayed below.

Also, feel free to view the source of the page or check it out in your browser's developer tools to see exactly how this works.