Etymologically
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compute

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /kəmˈpjuːt/[1]
  • US: /kəmˈpjut/[1]

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

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