calculator

noun
/ˈkæl.kjə.leɪ.tə(ɹ)//kæl.kjə.leɪ.tɚ/US

Etymology

In the sense of a person, from Middle English calkelatour (“a mathematician, an astrologer”), borrowed from Latin calculātor, equivalent to calculate + -or. The other meanings arose in Modern English.

  1. derived from calculātor
  2. inherited from calkelatour — “a mathematician, an astrologer

Definitions

  1. A mechanical or electronic device that performs mathematical calculations

    A mechanical or electronic device that performs mathematical calculations; (now usually) an electronic one specifically.

    • electronic calculator;   pocket calculator
    • The calculator on a bookkeeper's desk in the 1950s was an adding machine with mechanical guts.
    • I told him to hand me a calculator and he jokingly placed an adding machine at my side.
  2. A person who performs mathematical calculation.

    • During the war, his grandmother had worked at the Bletchley Park decoding station as a calculator.
    • First, many real-world investors bear little resemblance to the cool calculators of efficient-market theory: they're all too subject to herd behavior, to bouts of irrational exuberance and unwarranted panic.
  3. A person who calculates (in the sense of scheming).

    • Near-synonyms: schemer, plotter; manipulator
    • He revealed himself to be a cold-blooded calculator out to sabotage his colleagues.
    • Talk not thus, I implore you, Evelyn: do not imagine me the worldly calculator that my enemies deem me.
  4. + 1 more definition
    1. A set of mathematical tables.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for calculator. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA