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• ARPANET
  ARPANET

  noun

  Advanced Research Projects Agency Network: a network of computers, developed by the U.S. Department of Defense in the 1960s, that pioneered data transfer in packets and the Internet Protocol; a precursor to the internet.
• Arpanet
  Arpanet

  An acronym for A dvanced R esearch P roject A gency Net work. An early communications network developed by the Department of Defense in the late 1960s. It connected high-tech research institutions and the military.

ARPANET

American  

[ahr-puh-net] / ˈɑr pəˌnɛt /

Or ARPAnet

noun

Computers.

1. Advanced Research Projects Agency Network: a network of computers, developed by the U.S. Department of Defense in the 1960s, that pioneered data transfer in packets and the Internet Protocol; a precursor to the internet.

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ARPANET Scientific  

/ är′pə-nĕt /

1. A computer network developed by the Advanced Research Project Agency (now the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency) in the 1960s and 1970s as a means of communication between research laboratories and universities. ARPANET was the predecessor to the Internet.

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Arpanet Cultural  

1. An acronym for A dvanced R esearch P roject A gency Net work. An early communications network developed by the Department of Defense in the late 1960s. It connected high-tech research institutions and the military.

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See internet.

Discover More

Arpanet is often spoken of as a precursor of the Internet.

Creating a communications system that could survive a nuclear war was a major impetus behind the development of this system.

Etymology

Origin of ARPANET

First recorded in 1970–75

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

ARPANET Arpanet

In creating ARPANET, researchers developed many of the technologies that over the next few decades formed the basis for the internet we know today.

From Textbooks ● Dec. 14, 2022

It resembles the investments government made in the 1960s to develop ARPANET, the first, rough version of the Internet, and, later, the Global Positioning System.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 9, 2021

Future generations may look back on this moment the way we look nostalgically at ARPANET, a pure infant version of the internet, its vast potential yet to be recognized and commercialized.

From Science Magazine ● Jun. 3, 2021

ARPANET, the forerunner of the internet, was funded by the Defense Department.

From Seattle Times ● Feb. 28, 2021

The book, and softcopies obtained off the ARPANET, circulated even in cultures far removed from MIT and Stanford; the content exerted a strong and continuing influence on hackish language and humor.

From The Jargon File, Version 2.9.10, 01 Jul 1992 by Eric S. Raymond

Famously, Bell Labs managers didn’t see value in the Arpanet, which eventually led to today’s internet.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 28, 2026

There, he worked with Al Gore, then a senator, to craft legislation to make the military’s computer network, Arpanet, available to civilian researchers through the foundation’s NSFnet.

From New York Times ● Mar. 22, 2023

The first stage is already underway, with the construction of a demonstration quantum network that will connect four cities in the Netherlands — a kind of Arpanet analogue.

From Scientific American ● Sep. 28, 2019

Frank Heart, 89, the engineer who oversaw development of the first routing computer for the Arpanet, the precursor to the internet, died last Sunday at a retirement community in Lexington, Massachusetts.

From Seattle Times ● Jun. 29, 2018

He noted the difficulty of anticipating the effects of orders-of-magnitude growth, reflecting on the twenty years of experience with the Arpanet and Internet.

From Library of Congress Workshop on Etexts by Library of Congress