# What does the t in t-category stand for?

To my knowledge the notion of a t-category was first introduced Beilinson, Bernstein and Deligne's Faiseaux Pervers. But while they explain the name "perverse sheaf", they don't give any indication how they came up with the name t-category.

Does anyone know whether the "t" in "t-category"/"t-structure" stands for something specific?

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I had always assumed that $t$ stood for "truncation". –  Donu Arapura Feb 5 '12 at 22:54
@Donu: That might be a good rationale for the terminology, but in any case the section starts out with the definition of "t-category" as a special type of triangulated category which is natural for the theory of perverse sheaves. It would be interesting to know the viewpoints (possibly divergent) of the three authors, one of whom probably did the major writing here (in French). –  Jim Humphreys Feb 5 '12 at 23:12
A little late, but someone once told me that Bernstein told them that it stands for "truncation". (Now you just have to decide how much weight you give to third-hand accounts.) –  user5117 Jun 6 '13 at 20:03