- present participle of compute.
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.
Tokens are the units of data and computing power that customers using Anthropic’s Claude AI platform purchase, for example.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 6, 2026
She still praised computing facilities themselves as a “really good economic tool” and noted that the Qualified Data Center Task Force was working to outline recommendations on how PGC should approach hyperscale centers going forward.
From Slate ● Aug. 6, 2026
IonQ posts second-quarter earnings just days after the quantum computing company closed a major acquisition.
From Barron's ● Aug. 6, 2026
AMD has pivoted sharply over the last year to serve customers running inference workloads, or the type of computing required to query AI models.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 4, 2026
From the beginning of the computing pools, the women easily hurdled the engineers’ expectations, raising the bar as they did it.
From "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly
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.
