Social policy is policy usually within a governmental or political setting, such as the welfare state and study of social services. Social policy consists of guidelines, principles, legislation and activities that affect the living conditions conducive to human welfare, such as a person's quality of life. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_policy)
Social security: The protection which society provides for its members, through a series of public measures, against the economic and social distress that otherwise will be caused by the stoppage or substantial reduction of earnings resulting from sickness, maternity, employment injury, unemployment, invalidity, old age, and death, and also including the provision of medical care and provision of subsidies for families and children. (International Labor Organization. 2016. "Social protection assessment-based national dialogue: A global guide". ILO. <https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---integration/documents/publication/wcms_568693.pdf>.)
Quasi-geostrophic motion refers to flows where the Coriolis force and pressure gradient forces are almost in balance, but with inertia also having an effect. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi-geostrophic_equations)
Social structure is a concept and term used to capture the collective properties exhibited by social entities and to identify the characteristics of and specify the relationships among their component elements. (Charles Crothers, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition), 2015)
At times used synonymous with assistance but sometimes use more broadly to refer to social protection (for instance, in the sense of a social welfare system) but may also refer to the state of social wellbeing. (UNECSWA. 2023. Trilingual Glossary of Key Social Protection Terminology. https://www.unescwa.org/sites/default/files/pubs/pdf/trilingual-glossary-social-protection-terminology-volume-1-english.pdf)
Social workers help to protect vulnerable children and adults from harm or abuse, and support people to live independently. (Adapted from National Careers Service, UK. 2025. Social worker https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/job-profiles/social-worker)
Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes the economic, political, and social theories and movements associated with the implementation of such systems. (Wikipedia. 2025. Socialism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism)
A social science dealing with group relationships, patterns of collective behavior, and social organization. (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/cgi/mesh/2010/MB_cgi?mode=&index=12433&field=all&HM=&II=&PA=&form=&input=)
A soil that contains sufficient sodium to adversely affect the growth of most crop plants (sodic soils are defined as those soils which have an exchangeable sodium percentage of more than 15). (FAO. 2022. The State of the World’s Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture – Systems at breaking point. Main report. Rome.
https://doi.org/10.4060/cb9910en)
