DBMS: Attribute (Definitions)

"A qualifier of an entity or a relation describing its character quantity, quality, degree, or extent. In database design, tables represent entities and columns represent attributes of those entities. For example, the title column represents an attribute of the entity titles." (Microsoft Corporation, "SQL Server 7.0 System Administration Training Kit", 1999)

"A column (field) in a dimension table." (Ralph Kimball & Margy Ross, "The Data Warehouse Toolkit" 2nd Ed., 2002)

"An attribute is the lowest level of information relating to any entity. It models a specific piece of information or a property of a specific entity. Dimensional modeling has a more restrictive definition; it refers to information that describes the characteristics of a dimension." (Claudia Imhoff et al, "Mastering Data Warehouse Design", 2003)

"A data item that has been 'attached' to an entity. By doing this, a distinction can be made between the generic characteristics of the data item itself (for instance, data type and default documentation) and the entity-specific characteristics (for example, identifying and entity-specific documentation). It’s a distinct characteristic of an entity for which data is maintained. An attribute is a value that describes or identifies an entity, and an entity contains one or more attributes that characterize the entity as a whole. An entity example is Employee, and an attribute example is Employee Last Name." (Sharon Allen & Evan Terry, "Beginning Relational Data Modeling" 2nd Ed., 2005)

"A property that can assume values for entities or relationships. Entities can be assigned several attributes (for example, a tuple in a relationship consists of values). Some systems also allow relationships to have attributes as well." (William H Inmon, "Building the Data Warehouse", 2005)

"Information about a specific dimension member." (Reed Jacobsen & Stacia Misner, "Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services Step by Step", 2006)

"The equivalent of a relational database field, used more often to describe a similar low-level structure in object structures." (Gavin Powell, "Beginning Database Design", 2006)

"The differing data items within a relation. An attribute is a named column of a relation." (S. Sumathi & S. Esakkirajan, "Fundamentals of Relational Database Management Systems", 2007)

"The formal database term for column." (Rod Stephens, "Beginning Database Design Solutions", 2008)

"Individual data element that is represented and stored in a dimension. Each attribute contains data relating to that dimension." (Laura Reeves, "A Manager's Guide to Data Warehousing", 2009)

"A primitive data element that provides descriptive detail about an entity; a data field or data item in a record. For example, lastname would be an attribute for the entity customer. Attributes may also be used as descriptive elements for certain relationships among entities." (Toby J Teorey, "Database Modeling and Design 4th Ed", 2010)

"A characteristic of an entity or object. An attribute has a name and a data type." (Carlos Coronel et al, "Database Systems: Design, Implementation, and Management" 9th Ed., 2011)

"Characteristic describing an entity. Also known as a field." (Linda Volonino & Efraim Turban, "Information Technology for Management 8th Ed", 2011)

"A single characteristic or additional piece of information (financial or non-financial) that exists in a database." (Microsoft, "SQL Server 2012 Glossary", 2012)

"An inherent fact, property, or characteristic describing an entity. Every attribute does one of three things: describes, identifies, or relates." (Craig S Mullins, "Database Administration", 2012)

"In modeling, an attribute represents a characteristic of an entity. Because of this use, attribute is sometimes understood as a data element (which is a component piece of a data used to represent an entity), or a field (which is part of a system used to display or intake data), or a column (which is a place in a table to store a defined characteristic of a represented entity, that is, to store values associated with data elements)." (Laura Sebastian-Coleman, "Measuring Data Quality for Ongoing Improvement ", 2012)

"A data element that describes an entity or a relationship. Each attribute applies to every occurrence of its entity or relationship." (James Robertson et al, "Complete Systems Analysis: The Workbook, the Textbook, the Answers", 2013)

"In the context of information, a descriptor that is not usually associated with a numerical value. Some examples are bad, excellent, red, green, tall, small, wide, far, heavy, fast, portrait, and scenic." (Kenneth A Shaw, "Integrated Management of Processes and Information", 2013)

"A value of data that is distinguishable from other values" (Daniel Linstedt & W H Inmon, "Data Architecture: A Primer for the Data Scientist", 2014)

"The property or characteristic of an object that can be distinguished quantitatively or qualitatively by human or automated means." (David Sutton, "Information Risk Management: A practitioner’s guide", 2014)

"Characteristics of an object we capture in a catalog or model for data management purposes. Example: last name is an attribute of a person." (Gregory Lampshire, "The Data and Analytics Playbook", 2016)