• 1 Linköping University

We study a poset $\Re$ on the free monoid (X*) on a countable alphabet X.This poset is determined by the fact that its total extensions are precisely the standard term orders on X*. We also investigate the poset classifying degree-compatible standard term orders, and the poset classifying sorted term orders. For the latter poset, we give a Galois coconnection with the Young lattice.