[nuancebydefault]

I never understood why a 'dictionary' (so called conveniently in python) is called a 'map' in c++ and yet, a 'hash' in ruby. On a side note, a map in ruby is an operation that actively maps one thing to another. So confusing. Finally reading what you just wrote makes the pieces of this puzzle to fall in place! Never had a data structures class.

[q-big]

According to https://stackoverflow.com/a/2884200 map and dictionary are just terms for the same data structure concept. On the other hand: there exist other backings for this data structure than hashing the key, such as binary trees (for example red-black trees or AVL trees).