translation memory

A translation memory (TM) is a database that stores "segments", which can be sentences, paragraphs or sentence-like units (headings, titles or elements in a list) that have previously been translated, in order to aid human translators. The translation memory stores the source text and its corresponding translation in language pairs called "translation units". Individual words are handled by terminology bases and are not within the domain of TM.

Software programs that use translation memories are sometimes known as translation memory managers (TMM) or translation memory systems (TM systems, not to be confused with a translation management system (TMS), which is another type of software focused on managing the process of translation).