The phrase "a term that seems" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when discussing a word or phrase that appears to have a certain meaning or connotation, often implying uncertainty or subjectivity.
Example: "In the context of modern technology, 'disruption' is a term that seems to capture the essence of rapid change."
Alternatives: "a phrase that appears" or "a word that seems".
In recent months, China has been saying that it's time for a "new type of major power relations"—a term that seems calibrated to signal China's realization that its future stability hinges on getting it right with the United States, but stops short of any exclusive "G-2" relationship, which sounds, to Chinese ears, like too much responsibility.
On the one hand the smart "brains" head for cool, coastal cities like New York and Boston, while "families" and "feet"–a term that seems to apply to the less cognitively gifted trudge to the the nation's southern tier a.k.a. the Sun Belt for cheap prices and warm weather.
Still, "herding cats" is not a term that seems to apply to the Popovich family.
Everyone interviewed for this article expressed some degree of disdain for a term that seems to relegate the skills it's describing to the backseat.
It's a term that seems to resonate in many circles, and was a part of the thinking behind the Digital Youth project.
A tetragrammatonic anything and a term that seems to have stalled in the Italian Renaissance are points of reference that might just irritate, rather than illuminate, some readers.
We existed in a perpetual post-college phase -- a term that seemed increasingly ridiculous when we started receiving notices for our 10-year-high-school reunions.
So we adopted a term that seemed close, the carriage, modified by the key thing that was being removed from this mode of transport, the horse.
Sciatica is a medical term that seems a little old-fashioned, like lumbago or the grippe.
We can expect him to campaign heavily on support for the Iraq war, and for continuation of Bush's "surge" (I will refer to it in quotes throughout, since it's a silly term that seems to have been invented simply to avoid use of a more disturbing word, "escalation").
If the category had been American wheat ales, a catchall term that seems to have been invented for hybrids like this, we might have scored it higher.
