It has an index? It has data that can be queried with indexes? it is a database. PERIOD. Let's not turn the word database into a buzzword.

It should obviously NOT be a "main" database but part of an ETL pipeline for search purposes for instance.

> Let's not turn the word database into a buzzword.

It is much too late for that, but you're right that we'd be wise to put effort into undoing that. This is exactly how you end up with people using Elasticsearch as a primary datastore. When someone hears that they need a database, a database is what you are going to see them pick.

If we regularly used the proper terminology with appropriate specificity then those without the deep technical knowledge required to understand all the different kinds of databases and the tradeoffs that come them are able to narrow their search to the solutions that fit within the specification.