Entity, EntityReference | NN n/a IE n/a DOM 1
The Entity object (one of the node types) is an abstract representation in the W3C DOM of an element that is treated in an XML document as a storage unit. Some entities define a name that can be used by other elements (including other entities) as a shortcut reference to the information stored in the entity. This latter reference is represented in the W3C DOM as an EntityReference node type. You can see many examples of Entity elements in DTD documents. For more details on the application of Entity elements, see the XML specification at http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml.