# OpenTelemetry glossary: 30 terms you should know

DevFeed: [OpenTelemetry glossary: 30 terms you should know](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/opentelemetry-glossary-30-terms-you-should-know-38034.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://nurkiewicz.com/2026/04/open-telemetry-glossary.html>)

Published: 2026-04-14T22:00:00Z

Content type: tutorial

Language: en

Sources: [Tomasz Nurkiewicz around Java and concurrency](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/tomasz-nurkiewicz-around-java-and-concurrency.md>)

Topics: [OpenTelemetry](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/opentelemetry.md>), [observability](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/observability.md>), [Traces](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/traces.md>), [tracing](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/tracing.md>), [telemetry](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/telemetry.md>)

Tags: [distributed-tracing](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/distributed-tracing.md>), [grafana](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/grafana.md>), [monitoring](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/monitoring.md>), [observability](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/observability.md>), [opentelemetry](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/opentelemetry.md>), [prometheus](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/prometheus.md>), [trace](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/trace.md>), [traces](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/traces.md>), [tracing](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/tracing.md>)

## AI overview

A developer-oriented glossary explains core OpenTelemetry and observability concepts, including observability, traces, spans, context propagation, metrics, and logs. It describes how traces follow requests across distributed systems, how spans represent individual operations, and how context propagation connects work across service boundaries.

## Source excerpt

A glossary of OpenTelemetry and observability terms, from traces and spans to Grafana and Datadog. Opinionated definitions for developers who don't have time for dry documentation.