USE is a convention used to indicate a relationship between a preferred and non-preferred term. USE follows a non-prefered term and precedes a preferred term to suggest that the preferred term is used instead of the non-preferred term. For example, "serpents USE snakes" indicates that "snakes" is a preferred term for "serpents." 

UF is a convention used to indicate a relationship between a preferred and non-preferred term. UF follows a preferred term and precedes a non-preferred term to identified synonyms not used as a search term in a information retrieval system. For example, "dogs UF canines" indicates that "canines" is a non-preferred term for for "dogs."

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A cross-reference that indicates a relationship between synonymous terms or terms that share similar definitions. These relationships are typically used to identify one term among synonyms to represent a single concept in an information retrieval system. 

Equivalence Cross-Referencing Relationships

ANSI/NISO. (2005). Guidelines for the Construction, Format, and Management of monolingual Controlled Vocabularies. American National Standards Institute. https://groups.niso.org/higherlogic/ws/public/download/12591/z39-19-2005r2010.pdf 

Guidelines for the Construction, Format, and Management of monolingual Controlled Vocabularies

If there are more than one terms that cover the same concept (equivalence relationship), one is selected as a preferred term. Preferred terms represents the concept by synonymous terms in an information retrieval system.

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