calculator
[kal-kyuh-ley-ter]
- a person who calculates or computes.
- Also called calculating machine. a small electronic or mechanical device that performs calculations, requiring manual action for each individual opertion.
- a person who operates such a machine.
- a set of tables that facilitates calculation.
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Origin of calculator
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for calculator
Contemporary Examples
I used to dismantle a calculator to understand how it works.
Vilified Bitcoin Tycoon After Losing $500 Million: My Life Is at RiskNathalie-Kyoko Stucky
September 17, 2014
If I read my calculator right, that would be 0.000001 per cent.
Was the calculator created only to pump up sales of the already multi-billion-dollar statin market?
According to the Times' calculator, Romney would have had to win 73 percent of the Hispanic vote to prevail in 2012.
Now you have to either buy two, or break out the calculator.
Historical Examples
Yard after yard of calculator paper was filled with equations and computations.
Spacehounds of IPCEdward Elmer Smith
She had a figure like an ironing board and the soul of a Ramsden calculator.
Unwise ChildGordon Randall Garrett
There were ten calculator tables here, two of them in operation now.
The Ultimate WeaponJohn Wood Campbell
He strode to the desk, reached out one hand and drew a calculator near.
EmpireClifford Donald Simak
"Now you're making a joke," Meta said serenely as she fed a figure into the calculator.
DeathworldHarry Harrison
calculator
- a device for performing mathematical calculations, esp an electronic device that can be held in the hand
- a person or thing that calculates
- a set of tables used as an aid to calculations
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for calculator
n.
late 14c., "mathematician, one who calculates," from Latin calculator, from calculatus, past participle of calculare "to reckon, compute," from calculus (see calculus). Of mechanical adding machine contraptions, from 1784. Of electronic ones, from 1946.
Electronic calculator uses 18,000 tubes to solve complex problems ["Scientific American" headline, June 1946]
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
calculator
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.