Maybe someone can clear something up for my understanding here.

Having implemented A*-style algorithms occasionally, I was under the impression that by "navmesh" people mean a planar vector structure that can then be navigated using, for example, A*. As opposed to a grid data structure consisting of cells that can then be navigated using a pathfinding algorithm. I always saw A* as a strategy to find a path in any graph, and I saw navmesh as an example of such a graph.

Now it seems people are defining navmeshes as both a data structure AND pathfinding strategy, and by the same token are likewise seeing A* as both. This seems really confusing to me.

Have I been using the lingo wrong all this time?