Computer

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /kəmˈpjuːtə/

Definitions

1. An electronic device that processes data, performs calculations, and executes programmed instructions to complete tasks
2. A device that manipulates information, performs computations, and carries out sequences of operations for various applications
3. An electronic machine that handles information processing, executes algorithms, and conducts various tasks through software commands

Etymology: The earliest "computers" were people. In 1613, the poet Richard Brathwait used the word for a human who calculates, and for centuries it meant exactly that: a clerk, often a woman, who worked through long columns of figures for astronomers, navigators and engineers. The word is simply "compute" with the agent suffix "-er" attached, so a computer was literally one who computes. The machine sense arrived much later. It first appears around 1897 in the magazine Engineering, when the word began to be applied to calculating devices rather than to the people operating them. The shift was gradual, and the human sense lingered for decades after machines took over the work. The word is also a doublet of "cantor", "counter" and "kontor", words that share a common ancestry in Latin "computare", meaning "to reckon together", and come into English along different paths.

Synonyms: PC, laptop, desktop, machine, device