A determination method executed by a computer including a memory and a processor coupled to the memory, includes receiving a plurality of sentences and designation of terms included in the plurality of sentences, generating, for each term for which the designation is received, information indicating a relation between the term and each of other terms included in one of the plurality of sentences containing the term, extracting, for each term for which the designation is received, information indicating a specific relation from the generated information indicating the relation, generating characteristic information that uses the extracted information as a feature, and determining similarity between a plurality of the terms based on the generated characteristic information for each term.