computing
Americannoun
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the use of a computer to process data or perform calculations.
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the act of calculating or reckoning.
noun
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the activity of using computers and writing programs for them
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the study of computers and their implications
adjective
Etymology
Origin of computing
Explanation
Computing is the act of calculating something––adding it up, multiplying it, or doing more complex math functions to it. Computers are named for this process, because they can compute faster than most people. The verb compute comes from a Latin word for pruning. You can think of it like cleaning up piles of data to get a clear result. If you run a shop and have lots of figures, for items sold and returned, and money paid for salaries and overhead, then you'll have to do some computing to know how much money you actually earned that day. It's also a type of engineering.
Vocabulary lists containing computing
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
He noted that progress in AI, computing, and open collaborative science is making this kind of research increasingly possible.
From Science Daily • Jun. 10, 2026
In the artificial-intelligence world, pretty much everyone wants to lay hands on chips and other computing hardware made by the market leader, Nvidia.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 10, 2026
But the reality is that on-device AI requires a fair amount of computing horsepower that involves system memory, or DRAM.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 9, 2026
Riding a wave of hype and capital, quantum computing was thrust back into the spotlight last month as the U.S. government made a $2 billion bet on the technology.
From Barron's • Jun. 9, 2026
We’d tackled gun control, the meaning of intellectual property, the structure of American education, and the future of networked computing.
From "Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho" by Jon Katz
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
