Authorities by Field

A list of names or terms that also include variants. Usually the term "authority" is used in the phrase "authority file," talking specifically about lists of personal or organizational names.  Authorities can also be more generally understood as controlled vocabularies that are used widely (i.e. it is an authority.) For example, the Library of Congress's Name Authority File or Subject Authority Headings.

A list of concepts, items, or names, whose forms are determined and revised by a particular body (i.e. controlled). Controlled vocabularies generally contain the term, variants of the term and/or related terms, description/scope note of the term, and a persistent identifier for the term record. 

A controlled vocabulary that also contains hierarchical organization and relationships between different terms (ex. parent-child relationships, synonym relationships, antonym relationships). Generally, these hierarchies are based on a conceptual order. For example, the Getty Vocabularies' Art and Architecture Thesaurus organizes its terms around several high-level categories, such as "Materials," "Activities" and "Styles and Periods." Those are broken down further by time period, location, or simply by broader term to narrower term. Each thesaurus has its own way of organizing terms.