The following article provides an introductory overview of the different research domains (computational linguistics, terminography, artificial intelligence, philosophy and database semantics) for which ontologies and the emerging field of the Semantic Web have become a main point of interest. It is pointed out that each of these domains uses a different definition for an ontology. A specific ontology engineering methodology (VUB STAR Lab DOGMA) is presented and emphasis is put on the specific role and contribution of (multilingual) terminography in this ontology. In addition, the authors explain what ontologies might offer to advance the state of the art of linguistics and terminography.