DOS
noun
any of several single-user, command-driven operating systems for personal computers, especially MS DOS.
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DOS
1 American
[daws, dos]
/ dɔs, dɒs /
noun
Computers.
DOS
2
American
abbreviation
DoS
3
American
[daws, dos, dee-oh-es]
/ dɔs, dɒs, ˈdiˌoʊˈɛs /
abbreviation
DOS
British
/ dɒs /
acronym
Etymology
Origin of DOS
d(isk) o(perating) s(ystem)
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.
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Since IBM chose an Intel CPU for its first PC in 1980, chips based around the x86 architecture have run Microsoft DOS and Windows PCs.
From Barron's ● Jun. 2, 2026
Decart has two main business lines, the fastest-growing of which is known as the Decart Optimization Stack, or DOS.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 18, 2026
They called it JAWS, which stands for Job Access With Speech, but is also a playful reference to another DOS screen reader called Flipper, like the dolphin in an eponymous 1960s TV show.
From The Verge ● Jul. 14, 2022
We’d still be staring at DOS prompts on monochrome screens.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 20, 2021
As many viruses do, this one attached itself to the Command.Com file of the DOS Operating System.
From Terminal Compromise: computer terrorism: when privacy and freedom are the victims: a novel by Winn Schwartau
Unlike , DoS takes into account the constraints inferred from the current polymorphism, distinguishing negative, neutral and adaptive selection.
From Nature ● Feb. 8, 2012
We also computed the direction of selection, DoS, which is positive with adaptive selection, zero under neutrality and negative when weakly deleterious or new nearly neutral mutations are segregating.
From Nature ● Feb. 8, 2012
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.
