calculator

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English calculatour,^[2][3] borrowed from Latin calculātor (“a reckoner, accountant”),^{[4][5][6][3][7]} an agent noun from calculō (“to reckon, compute”),^[4][5][6] from calculus (“reckoning, account; originally a pebble used as a counter”),^[5] a diminutive of calx (“limestone”).^[5] The OED compares French calculateur.^[4] In modern use the Shorter Oxford takes it as calculate with the suffix -or.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person who calculates, a reckoner: about 1380, in Wyclif's English works.^[4][2] Etymonline glosses the first sense as "mathematician".^[5]

Semantic evolution

For four centuries the word named only a person;^[4] Johnson (1755) defined it as "a computer; a reckoner", when computer too meant a person.^[9][4] The OED records it in 1784 for a set of tables that made calculations easier, in the title of a book,^[4] while Etymonline dates its use for mechanical adding machines from 1784;^[5] the OED's first record of a calculating machine is in a South Kensington Museum catalogue of 1876.^[4] Electronic machines were called calculators from 1946, when a heading in Scientific American announced that an electronic calculator used 18,000 tubes;^[4][5] the small flat pocket calculator with a keypad and display is the usual sense now.^[4][10]

Timeline

• c. 1380 – a person who calculates.^[4][5]
• 1755 – Johnson defines it as a computer, a reckoner.^[9]
• 1784 – a set of tables for calculating (OED); mechanical adding machines (Etymonline).^[4][5]
• 1876 – a mechanical calculating machine.^[4]
• 1946 – an electronic calculating device.^[4][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. An electronic device for performing arithmetical calculations, especially a small one held in the hand: She checked the bill on her calculator.^[10][4][3]
2. A person who calculates; a reckoner.^[10][3][4]
3. A set of tables used as an aid to calculation.^[10][4]

Word family

• minicalculator
• pocket calculator

Related words

• calculate
• calculus
• calculation
• chalk

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins