GRADLE DICTIONARY - sergeyzolotukhin/learn-java-gradle GitHub Wiki

A Configuration represents a group of artifacts and their dependencies. Gradle represents the scope of a dependency with the help of a Configuration. Every configuration can be identified by a unique name.

https://docs.gradle.org/current/userguide/dependency_management.html

https://docs.gradle.org/current/userguide/dependency_management.html#sub:terminology_module