Medical Subject Headings

controlled vocabulary for the purpose of indexing journal articles and books in the life sciences
Place thesaurus Q199897
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Medical Subject Headings is a thesaurus[1] that plays a role in organizing medical information. Established in 1960[2], it has been in use for several decades.

As a thesaurus[1], Medical Subject Headings provides a controlled vocabulary for indexing and retrieving medical literature.

Medical Subject Headings was established in 1960[2], marking the beginning of its application in the field of medicine.

It continues to serve as a thesaurus[1] established in 1960[2].

Medical Subject Headings

Summary

Medical Subject Headings is a thesaurus[1]. It draws 987 Wikipedia views per month (thesaurus category, ranking #1 of 8).[2]

Key Facts

  • Medical Subject Headings authored United States National Library of Medicine[3].
  • Medical Subject Headings's instance of is recorded as thesaurus[4].
  • Medical Subject Headings's instance of is recorded as medical database[5].
  • Medical Subject Headings's instance of is recorded as controlled vocabulary[6].
  • Medical Subject Headings's Commons category is recorded as Medical Subject Headings[7].
  • Medical Subject Headings's language of work or name is recorded as English[8].
  • Medical Subject Headings's country of origin is recorded as United States[9].
  • 1960 marks the founding of Medical Subject Headings[10].
  • Medical Subject Headings's official website is recorded as https://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.html[11].
  • Medical Subject Headings's topic's main category is recorded as Category:Medical Subject Headings[12].
  • Medical Subject Headings's main subject is medicine[13].
  • Medical Subject Headings's legal citation of this text is recorded as pmid = 13982385[14].
  • Medical Subject Headings's described by source is recorded as Q109302681[15].
  • Medical Subject Headings's title is recorded as {'lang': 'en', 'text': 'Medical Subject Headings'}[16].
  • Medical Subject Headings's main Wikidata property is recorded as P486[17].
  • Medical Subject Headings's main Wikidata property is recorded as P672[18].
  • Medical Subject Headings's main Wikidata property is recorded as P6680[19].
  • Medical Subject Headings's main Wikidata property is recorded as P6694[20].
  • Medical Subject Headings's main Wikidata property is recorded as P9340[21].
  • Medical Subject Headings's main Wikidata property is recorded as P9341[22].
  • Medical Subject Headings's short name is recorded as {'lang': 'en', 'text': 'MeSH'}[23].
  • Medical Subject Headings's URL is recorded as https://id.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/query[24].
  • Medical Subject Headings's exact match is recorded as http://purl.org/dc/terms/MESH[25].
  • Medical Subject Headings's exact match is recorded as http://dbpedia.org/resource/Medical_Subject_Headings[26].
  • Medical Subject Headings's exact match is recorded as http://yago-knowledge.org/resource/Medical_Subject_Headings[27].

Body

Designation and Status

Recorded instance of include thesaurus[4], medical database[5], and controlled vocabulary[6].

History and Context

1960 marks the founding of Medical Subject Headings[10].

Why It Matters

Medical Subject Headings draws 987 Wikipedia views per month (thesaurus category, ranking #1 of 8).[2] It has Wikipedia articles in 29 language editions, a strong signal of global cultural recognition.[28] It is known by 49 alternative names across languages and contexts.[29]

References

Programmatic citations — every numbered marker resolves to a verifiable graph row below.

Direct Wikidata claims

  1. [4] . Basic Register of Thesauri, Ontologies & Classifications. Retrieved . wikidata.org.
  2. [5] . wikidata.org.
  3. [6] . wikidata.org.
  4. [3] . Basic Register of Thesauri, Ontologies & Classifications. Retrieved . wikidata.org.
  5. [7] . wikidata.org.
  6. [8] . wikidata.org.
  7. [9] . Basic Register of Thesauri, Ontologies & Classifications. Retrieved . wikidata.org.
  8. [10] . nlm.nih.gov. Retrieved . nlm.nih.gov. Provenance: wikidata.org.
  9. [11] . wikidata.org.
  10. [12] . wikidata.org.
  11. [13] . wikidata.org.
  12. [14] . wikidata.org.
  13. [15] . wikidata.org.
  14. [16] . Basic Register of Thesauri, Ontologies & Classifications. Retrieved . wikidata.org.
  15. [17] . wikidata.org.
  16. [18] . wikidata.org.
  17. [19] . wikidata.org.
  18. [20] . wikidata.org.
  19. [21] . wikidata.org.
  20. [22] . wikidata.org.
  21. [23] . Basic Register of Thesauri, Ontologies & Classifications. Retrieved . wikidata.org.
  22. [24] . wikidata.org.
  23. [25] . wikidata.org.
  24. [26] . wikidata.org.
  25. [27] . wikidata.org.

Class ancestry

  1. [1] . Wikidata. wikidata.org.

Aggregate / graph-position facts

  1. [2] . Wikimedia Foundation. dumps.wikimedia.org.
  2. [28] . Wikidata sitelinks. wikidata.org.
  3. [29] . Wikidata aliases. wikidata.org.

📑 Cite this page

Use these citations when quoting this entity in research, articles, AI prompts, or wherever provenance matters. We aggregate Wikidata + Wikipedia + authoritative open-data sources; the stitched, scored, cross-referenced view is what 4ort.xyz contributes.

APA 4ort.xyz Knowledge Graph. (2026). Medical Subject Headings. Retrieved May 3, 2026, from https://4ort.xyz/entity/medical-subject-headings
MLA “Medical Subject Headings.” 4ort.xyz Knowledge Graph, 4ort.xyz, 3 May. 2026, https://4ort.xyz/entity/medical-subject-headings.
BibTeX @misc{4ortxyz_medical-subject-headings_2026, author = {{4ort.xyz Knowledge Graph}}, title = {{Medical Subject Headings}}, year = {2026}, url = {https://4ort.xyz/entity/medical-subject-headings}, note = {Accessed: 2026-05-03}}
LLM prompt According to 4ort.xyz Knowledge Graph (aggregator of Wikidata, Wikipedia, and authoritative open-data sources): Medical Subject Headings — https://4ort.xyz/entity/medical-subject-headings (retrieved 2026-05-03)

Canonical URL: https://4ort.xyz/entity/medical-subject-headings · Last refreshed:

Edit History

Rolling log of changes to this entity's Wikidata record. Values shown reflect the current state of each edited property — follow the history link to see the precise diff for any edit.

  1. 20d ago · Nyuhn · 2026-07-10 view diff on Wikidata ↗
    Topic's main category Category:Medical Subject Headings
    Main wikidata property P486, P672, P6680 +3
    Main subject medicine
    Language of work or name English
    + 13 other properties edited (see Wikidata diff for full list)
    "/* wbeditentity-update:0| */ QuickStatements 3.0 [[:toollabs:qs-dev/batch/40849|batch #40849]]: ZGBK ID"
Live feed via Wikidata EventStreams. New edits appear within minutes of being made on Wikidata.