# Looking for the definition of 'locally finite-dimensional'

Recently, reading the book 'Skew Linear Groups' by M. Shirvani and B. A. F. Wehrfritz, I've encountered the following:

Let D be a division ring which is locally finite-dimensional over
its centre but not finite dimensional over its centre.


Searching the web, I could not find the definition of being locally finite-dimensional.
The 'usual candidates' for a local property in rings are things to do with ideals, but as there are no non-trivial ideals in a division ring, the only thing that sounds remotely close is looking at finitely generated sub-algebras (when looking at $D$ as an algebra over it's centre) - is that correct? Can anyone point me to the definition of this?

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Perhaps related to local subrings of $D$.. –  Berci Feb 8 '13 at 20:59

From what I've seen, a locally finite dimensional" representation $V$ of a Lie algebra $\mathfrak{g}$ is one for which $U(\mathfrak{g}) v$ is finite dimensional for every $v \in V$. Thus, perhaps in your case you should require $Z d$ to be finite-dimensional for every $d \in D$ where $Z$ is the center.