# textual definition

## textual definition

A narrative text explanation of the meaning of a concept that may exceed the maximum permitted length for a fully specified name.

#### Notes

* **Textual definitions** are optional and are only provided for a limited number of concepts, where there is a requirement additional detail.\_\
  \_
* *Textual definitions* are distributed as descriptions with a description type [900000000000550004 | Definition (core metadata concept)|](http://snomed.info/id/900000000000550004) .
* A file that conforms to the standard description file format is used to distribute *textual definitions*. However, *descriptions* in this file have a maximum permitted length of 4096 characters.
*

#### Example

* One use of *textual definitions* is to indicate alignment of a SNOMED CT concept with a specific clinical definition of a condition.\
  For example [11530004 | Brittle diabetes mellitus (disorder)|](http://snomed.info/id/11530004) has the following textual definition:
  * [11530004 | Diabetes mellitus in which there are frequent, clinically significant fluctuations in blood glucose levels both above and below levels expected to be achieved by available therapies.|](http://snomed.info/id/11530004)

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