Learn English – hypernym for “order confirmation”, “quotation” and “invoice”

hypernymssingle-word-requests

Is there an abstraction for the following three words?

  • Order confirmation
  • Quotation
  • Invoice

I want to create a base class for them but I can't find a word that describes all three.

Best Answer

With respect, you don't actually want a synonym, you want an abstraction that encompasses the general case. You say as much yourself when you talk about a "base class".

So why not look at what is common in these three things?

Each of them is a communication of information about an order, between two or more parties. Each of them will have a date, a sender, an order reference, and one or more recipients.

Sounds awfully like we are talking about a letter. Or more generally, a communication. Or maybe correspondence.

As a programmer, I'd probably go for something like order-correspondence. Then, when I realise that I also need a class for receipt I've got a ready-made base class.

On the other hand, given such a problem, I'd probably go back to the design board and have a good think about what data I have to deal with, and for what purposes, and hope that having a serious think about the design would lead me naturally to the identification of good entity names.

In other words, if the names aren't obvious, the design probably needs more thought.

Related Topic