This document specifies general, i.e. implementation- and use-case-independent terminology database design principles to enable maximum efficiency and quality in terminology work. Thus, this document supports creating, processing, and using high quality terminology. The intended audiences of this document are terminologists, translators, interpreters, technical communicators, language planners, subject field experts, and terminology management system developers. This document describes a maximum approach, i.e. terminology database design for distributed, multilingual terminology management. It can also be used for designing smaller solutions.