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Vol. I · No. 251
Mon · 8 Jun
A Daily Lexicon of Trustworthy Data
The Lexicon

005·14

dimension table

/dɪˈmɛn.ʃən ˈteɪ.bəl/ - n.

1 [colloq.] Where the company keeps every adjective it has ever applied to a customer, none of them governed.Keep. Punchy.This is the problem.

Working definition

2. A table of descriptive attributes that give business context to facts and supply the labels used to filter and group them.

Promoted
See also
  • conformed dimensionA dimension every department agreed to share, then quietly forked the moment the meeting ended.
  • fact tableThe one table everyone trusts, named for a property no one has verified.
  • grainThe question 'what does one row mean?', asked far too late and answered by whoever wrote the query.
  • slowly changing dimensionAn attribute the business called permanent in the requirements meeting and changed twice before launch.