A Foreign Key is a field in a relational table that matches a candidate key of another table. The foreign key can be used to cross-reference tables.

For example, say we have two tables, a CUSTOMER table that includes all customer data, and an ORDER table that includes all customer orders. The intention here is that all orders must be associated with a customer that is already in the CUSTOMER table. To do this, we will place a foreign key in the ORDER table and have it relate to the primary key of the CUSTOMER table.

Foreign key – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.