I borrowed the terminology from ryani’s comment above; it’s the same thing you are discussing iirc, weak reference expressed by an index into a container and so

I borrowed the terminology from ryani’s comment above; it’s the same thing you are discussing iirc, weak reference expressed by an index into a container and some way to identify that container (expressed or implied). I like the “dormant” name because unlike a weak pointer (say, in Java or Python), you can’t use it directly - you have to borrow the actual object to use it; so it lies “dormant” until you wake it up. It’s not (necessarily) weak because there is no automatic destruction once all other references are gone.