Any domain in the name space can be refered to by the domain names in its hierarchical path seperated by dots. For example, a server connected to Internet at Mississippi State University has the domain name "borg.ee.msstate.edu". The name of the computer is "borg", it is part of the "ee" domain, which is part of the "msstate" domain, which is part of the "edu" domain. There is an implied "." representing the root domain at the end. The full name of a domain is also called its Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN).
Each domain in the DNS has one or more Resource Records (RRs), which are fields that contain information about that domain. The "A" field contains the IP address for the machine the domain represents, and the "MX" field contains the name of the machine that handles mail, among others.
Machines that store DNS information are refered to as nameservers. Other computers can query the nameservers to find out information about domains in the DNS. Each nameserver handles a specific part of the DNS. Through delegation, nameservers can allow other nameservers to handle parts of the DNS. For example, the nameserver for "msstate.edu" delegates responsibility for the "ee.msstate.edu" domain to another nameserver, which contains the information for "borg.ee.msstate.edu". Through delegation, the task of handling the name space for large computer networks is shared among many machines. Each piece of the DNS that can be handled by a nameserver is referred to as a zone. A nameserver can handle multiple zones.