Gigaflop

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A measure of computer processing speed representing one billion floating-point mathematical operations completed in a single second
2. A computational performance metric equal to one thousand megaflops or the execution of a billion floating-point calculations per second
3. A unit quantifying processor speed as the ability to perform approximately one billion floating-point arithmetic operations within one second

Etymology: "Gigaflop" is a technical coinage built from two parts. The first, "giga-", comes from the Greek "gigas," meaning giant, and entered English as the metric prefix for a billion (10 to the ninth power) units. The second, "flop," is a unit of computing speed meaning one floating-point operation per second, and the word combines the two to name a billion of them per second. Because the word is a straightforward compound, its history is mostly a matter of scale. "Flop" itself is an abbreviation of "floating-point operations per second," and attaching "giga-" to it follows the same pattern used for storage and frequency units. The result is a term that is less a survival from older English than a product of modern computing jargon, and it is best understood as a measurement word rather than one with a long linguistic past.