compute

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French computer (“to calculate”) and its source borrowed from Latin computō (“to count up, reckon, include in reckoning”),^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} formed from com- (“together”) and putō (“to reckon, think”).^[4][8][9] Ayto takes the English word as a direct borrowing from Latin.^[8] Putō meant to clear or settle an account,^[6][7][9] and originally to prune,^[4] from Proto-Indo-European *pau- (“to cut, strike, stamp”).^[4][10] French computer is a learned borrowing from Latin; the regular development of the Latin verb is conter, the source of count, so the two English verbs are doublets.^{[2][8][3][4][11]} The noun is borrowed from Latin computus (“calculation”),^[2][12] later felt as a noun use of the verb.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

To determine by arithmetical reckoning, to calculate: 1579, in a work by A. Munday.^[2] Merriam-Webster dates the verb to 1616, the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English to the early 17th century, and Barnhart and Etymonline to 1631 or the 1630s.^{[12][5][7][3][4]}

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) defined the verb as "to reckon; to calculate; to number; to count".^[13] In the 17th century it also meant to take into account or consider (from 1604, now rare),^[2] to make calculations (from 1634),^[2] and to count on something (1674–1772);^[2] Milton used it poetically for "to make up, comprise" (1667), a sense obsolete after 1827.^[2][12] In later use the verb came to mean working something out by a relatively complex calculation,^[2] and with the rise of the computer — at first a person who computes, from the mid 17th century, and an electronic machine from the 1940s^[8] — it also came to mean calculating with a computer or using one.^[12] The colloquial does not compute, "makes no sense", comes from the robot's phrase in the American television series My Living Doll (1964).^[2][14] The Oxford Dictionary of English links it with an error message once used in computing.^[7] The noun, "reckoning, calculation", is recorded from 1531 and survives chiefly in beyond compute.^[2][5][12]

Timeline

• 1483 – the noun, first as an equivalent of computus (obsolete by 1533).^[2]
• 1531 – noun, reckoning, calculation.^[2]
• 1579 – verb, to determine by reckoning.^[2]
• 1604 – to take into account (now rare).^[2]
• 1616 – Merriam-Webster's first date.^[12]
• 1631 – Barnhart's first date.^[3]
• 1634 – intransitive, to make calculations.^[2]
• 1667 – to make up, comprise, in Milton (obsolete after 1827).^[2]
• 1755 – Johnson: to reckon, calculate, number, count.^[13]
• 1964 – does not compute, in My Living Doll.^[2][14]

Meanings

Verb

1. To work out a number or amount by calculation, especially by mathematics: The clerk computed the total cost of the order.^{[15][12][2][7]}
2. To calculate something by means of a computer.^[12][15]
3. To make calculations; to reckon.^[12][2]
4. To use a computer.^[12]
5. (informal, with a negative) To make sense: His story just didn't compute.^{[12][2][7][14]}
6. (obsolete, 1667–1827) To make up or comprise, as a period of time.^[2][12]

Noun

1. Calculation, now chiefly in the phrase beyond compute: riches beyond compute.^{[12][15][2][5][13]}

Word family

• computability
• computable
• computably
• precompute
• computed tomography

Related words

• computation
• computer
• computing
• miscompute
• recompute
• count
• putative
• dispute
• impute
• reputation
• amputate

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
15. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins