--- taxonomy.api.php	2008-11-24 19:48:06.000000000 +0000
+++ taxonomy.api.php2	2008-11-24 20:01:12.000000000 +0000
@@ -73,13 +73,21 @@ function hook_taxonomy_vocabulary_delete
  * Act on taxonomy terms when loaded.
  *
  * Modules implementing this hook can act on the term object returned by
- * taxonomy_term_load().
+ * taxonomy_term_load(). For performance reasons, information to be added to
+ * the term objects should be loaded in a single query for all terms. Avoid
+ * altering properties provided by the core taxonomy term table, since this may
+ * provide unreliable results when loading from cache, or with other modules
+ * relying on that information. Terms are acted on directly due to PHP5 object
+ * handling, so there is no return value.
  *
- * @param $term
- *   A taxonomy term object.
+ * @param $terms
+ *   An array of term objects, indexed by tid.
  */
-function hook_taxonomy_term_load($term) {
-  $term->synonyms = taxonomy_get_synonyms($term->tid);
+function hook_taxonomy_term_load($terms) {
+  $result = db_query('SELECT tid, foo FROM {mytable} WHERE tid IN (' . db_placeholders(array_keys($terms)) .')', array_keys($terms));
+  foreach ($result as $record) {
+    $terms[$record->tid]->foo = $record->foo;
+  }
 }
 
 /**