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History of the International Electrotechnical Vocabulary (IEV)
At the first meeting of the Council of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in October 1908, Mr A. J. Balfour (later Lord Balfour) referred to the great value of the work the IEC was going to undertake on the unification of electrotechnical terminology. By 1914, the IEC had issued a first list of terms and definitions covering electrical machinery and apparatus, a list of international letter symbols for quantities and signs for names of units, a list of definitions in connection with hydraulic turbines, and a number of definitions and recommendations relating to rotating machines and transformers. Four technical committees had been formed to deal with Nomenclature, Symbols, Rating of Electrical Machinery, and Prime Movers.

First edition of the IEV
In 1927 agreement was reached on the system of classification into groups and sections, the system of numbering the terms and definitions, the approximate extent of the IEV and other important items. The first edition of the IEV was published in 1938 with 2000 terms and definitions in English and French, and terms in German, Italian, Spanish and Esperanto. It was the outcome of patient work over 28 years.

IEV goes online: Electropedia
The number of IEC technical committees is now more than 90, with almost as many subcommittees, and there are more than 20000 entries in the IEV, covering more than 80 subject areas. The terms and definitions are provided in English and French, and equivalent terms are provided in Arabic, Chinese, Finnish, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian (Bokmål and Nynorsk), Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish (coverage varies by subject area). Traditionally the IEV was developed and published as a series of International Standards, IEC 60050, with each part of the standard covering a given subject, such as circuit theory (IEC 60050-131), live working (IEC 60050-651) and electrobiology (IEC 60050-891). The online version of the IEV, known as Electropedia, was launched on 2 April 2007.

Electropedia becomes a database standard
As a collection of items managed in a database, the IEV is an ideal international standard to be managed under IEC’s database procedure (IEC Supplement). Through the use of a web-accessible database and electronic communication a validation team comprising experts appointed by and acting as delegates on behalf of their National Committees evaluate and validate requests to change the database. The change can comprise an addition or deletion, a revision (editorial or technical revision) or a simple correction, and can apply to one or many items in the database. The database procedure encompasses the comment gathering and validation stages of the traditional standards development process and allows for both a rapid procedure as well as the traditional procedure.

Future evolution
The IEC Technical Committee 1, Terminology, is currently considering whether there is interest in the IEC community to evolve the vocabulary towards an electrotechnology ontology covering electrical, electronic and related technologies.