Dataminer

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An individual who analyzes extensive data collections to discover patterns and insights
2. A specialist who examines vast amounts of data to identify meaningful trends
3. Someone skilled at processing large datasets to extract valuable knowledge

Etymology: "Dataminer" is a compound of "data" and "miner," the second part drawn from the older sense of mining as digging valuable material out of a large mass. Here the "data" is the raw mass of records, and the "miner" is the person or program that sifts through it for patterns, correlations, or hidden trends. The transfer of "mine" from earth to information rests on a metaphor that was already familiar by the time computing made large databases routine. Writers had long described searching a body of text or records as mining it, so applying the image to digital datasets was a natural extension. The spelling is written as one word in its own right, and it is an alternative to the two-word form "data miner," which has the same meaning.