This page gathers the 209 dictionary entries belonging to the domain “Computer”, as labelled by Wiktionary. Each word leads to its full entry: definitions, etymology, pronunciation, examples. Page 1 of 2: from “A*” to “lexical analysis”.
- A* noun A best-first graph search algorithm for finding a lowest-cost path to a goal.
- activation function noun A function that defines the output of a particular node in an artificial neural network on the basis of its inputs.
- ad-hoc polymorphism noun A kind of polymorphism where polymorphic functions can be applied to arguments of different types, as they can denote a number of distinct…
- add noun An act or instance of adding.
- adicity noun The number of arguments or operands a function or operation takes. For a relation, the number of domains in the corresponding Cartesian…
- alphabet noun A typically finite set of distinguishable symbols.
- alternating Turing machine noun A nondeterministic Turing machine containing a rule for accepting computations that generalizes the rules used in the definition of the…
- amortize verb To even out the costs of running an algorithm over many iterations, so that high-cost iterations are much less frequent than low-cost…
- amortized adj Of an algorithm, in which the costs of running it is evened out over many iterations.
- amortized constant time noun A class of algorithms in which the amortized time (the time per operation averaged over many operations) is constant, although for some…
- arbitrary-precision arithmetic noun Any calculation that is performed on numbers whose digits of precision are limited only by the available memory of the host system.
- arity noun The number of arguments or operands a function or operation takes. For a relation, the number of domains in the corresponding Cartesian…
- artificial intelligence noun The branch of computer science dealing with the reproduction or mimicking of human-level intelligence, self-awareness, knowledge…
- AVL tree noun A self-balancing binary search tree, where, for each node, the heights of the two child subtrees differ only by at most one.
- backtracking noun The act of building all possible solutions to a problem incrementally, abandoning any candidate solution if it cannot lead to a valid…
- baksmal verb Converting a Dalvik executable file (.dex file) to smali language (a human-readable representation of the binary Dalvik bytecode)
- banana noun A catamorphism (from the use of banana brackets in the notation).
- bifurcation noun A command that executes one block or other of commands depending on the result of a condition.
- binary adj Of an operation, function, procedure, or logic gate, taking exactly two operands, arguments, parameters, or inputs; having domain of…
- binary tree noun A data structure in which each node has at most two children, each node but the root has one parent, and there are no cycles.
- bioinformatics noun A field of science in which biology, computer science, and information technology merge into a single discipline to analyse biological…
- boom noun An instance of booming.
- break down verb To stop functioning.
- brute force noun A method of computation wherein the computer is let to try all permutations of a problem until one is found that provides a solution, in…
- bucket list noun A data structure containing buckets used in a hashing algorithm.
- built-in type noun A data type provided by a programming language as a basic building block, such as integer, character or Boolean, but in some languages also…
- Cali or bust phrase Expressing a desire to work for a company in Silicon Valley, California (especially a FAANG company).
- cardinal spline noun A series of curves joined to form a larger one, defined by a set of control points and an amount of tension.
- case sensitive adj Distinguishing upper- and lower-case letters. Often used in computer science to indicate a distinction is made in comparison or equality of…
- CFG noun Initialism of control-flow graph.
- Chomsky hierarchy noun A containment hierarchy of classes of formal grammars. From least to most specialized, the classes are: recursively enumerable…
- chunklet noun A group of data points belonging to the same constraint cluster.
- Church-Rosser property noun The property of a rewriting system for which x stackrel *↔y implies x mathbin ↓y for all objects x, y.
- circulation time noun The amount of time that elapses in a multiprocess system from the time when a process is loaded for execution until the time when the same…
- clockable adj Of an ordinal such that an infinite-time Turing machine can complete in so many steps of computation.
- code coverage noun A measure of the degree to which the source code of a program is executed when a particular test suite is run.
- codebook noun A lookup table.
- complementary nondeterministic polynomial noun The set, or property, of a problem with a yes/no answer in which the complementary yes/no problem calls for nondeterministic polynomial…
- complexity theory noun The study and classification of decision problems by the computational resources—such as time and space—needed by the programs that solve…
- composite type noun A data type that can be constructed in a programming language out of that language's primitive types and other composite types; exemplified…
- computability theory noun The branch of the theory of computation that studies which problems are computationally solvable using different models.
- computable function noun A mathematical function that can be computed using an abstract computation machine such as Turing machine.
- computation tree logic noun A particular modal logic of branching time with operators "next", "globally", "finally" or "eventually", "until", and "weak until".
- computational complexity theory noun A theory focusing on classifying computational problems according to their resource usage, and relating these classes to each other.
- computational geometry noun A field of study, within computer science, devoted to algorithms that solve problems formulated in geometric terms.
- computational linguistics noun An interdisciplinary field dealing with the statistical and/or rule-based modeling of natural language from a computational perspective.…
- concatenation tree noun A tree data structure whose internal nodes represent the concatenation of their child branches.
- concurrency noun A property of systems where several processes execute at the same time.
- confluence noun A property describing which terms can be rewritten with other, equivalent terms.
- conk off verb To stop functioning.
- constant time noun An algorithm, also written as O(1) time) where the value of T(n) (the complexity of the algorithm) is bounded by a value that does not…
- constraint cluster noun a cluster of data points in a set conforming to the must-link and cannot-link constraints specified for each pair of data points
- control flow noun The order in which individual statements, instructions or function calls of an imperative program are executed or evaluated.
- control-flow graph noun A representation, using graph notation, of all paths that might be traversed through a program during its execution.
- convex function noun A mathematical function where the line segment between any two points on the graph of the function lies above the graph in a vector space…
- cuckoo hashing noun A scheme for resolving hash collisions, using two hash functions instead of one, and allowing a newly inserted key to "kick out" any…
- cycle time noun The total elapsed time to complete an operation or set of operations.
- debug verb To search for and eliminate malfunctioning elements or errors in something, especially a computer program or machinery.
- decidable adj describing a set for which there exists an algorithm that will determine whether any element is or is not within the set in a finite amount…
- decider noun A Turing machine that halts regardless of its input.
- declarer noun A statement that declares the properties of a variable or contributes to doing so.
- deconflict verb To resolve contradictory conclusions or responses to queries in a rule-based or deductive reasoning system.
- deferred time noun The time when a deferred operation eventually takes place.
- denotation noun Any mathematical object which describes the meanings of expressions from the languages, formalized in the theory of denotational semantics
- denotational semantics noun An approach to formalizing the meanings of programming languages by constructing mathematical objects called denotations which describe the…
- deterministic Turing machine noun A Turing machine whose governing rules specify only one possible action for any given combination of the state of the machine and symbol…
- determinize verb To remove non-determinism in an automaton; to convert a non-deterministic automaton to a deterministic one.
- disjoint set noun A data structure used to store such sets and perform operations on them efficiently.
- divide and conquer noun An algorithm design technique that solves a problem by splitting it recursively into smaller problems until all of the remaining problems…
- downstream adj In the direction from the server to the client.
- downtrace noun The subtree of a tree structure that is determined by an attribute of a parent node.
- DP noun Initialism of dynamic programming.
- dynamic programming noun An optimization method by which a problem having optimal substructure is recursively broken into simpler subproblems which are solved to…
- enaction noun The interpretation of consciousness or understanding as a process of meaningfully engaging and interacting with the world in a hierarchy of…
- EXPTIME noun The set of all decision problems that are solvable by a deterministic Turing machine in exponential time.
- Fenwick tree noun A data structure that maintains prefix sums over a list of numbers while allowing dynamic updates and queries in logarithmic time.
- firebrick noun The X11 color name of RGB hexadecimal value #B22222.
- flag noun A variable or memory location that stores a Boolean true-or-false, yes-or-no value, typically either recording the fact that a certain…
- formal grammar noun A precise mathematical description of a formal language, consisting of terminal symbols, nonterminal symbols, a nonterminal symbol serving…
- formal semantics noun the rigorous mathematical study of the meaning of programming languages
- gadget noun A technique for converting a part of one problem to an equivalent part of another problem, used in constructing reductions.
- greedy adj That tries to find the global optimum by finding the local optimum at each stage.
- halting problem noun The problem of deciding in finite time whether a given program will finish running in finite time, when given a certain finite input.
- hold hostage verb To sabotage (a computer) with intent to blackmail the owner.
- hopscotch hashing noun A scheme for resolving hash collisions, having an insertion algorithm that involves a series of hops.
- horizon noun The point at which a computer chess algorithm stops searching for further moves.
- immediate adj Embedded as part of the instruction itself, rather than stored elsewhere (such as a register or memory location).
- in-tree noun An n-ary tree data structure in which each node has a pointer to its parent node, but no pointers to child nodes.
- insertion sort noun A sorting algorithm that performs its task by inserting new items into a pre-existing sorted data structure.
- interactive adj Offering or involving interaction with the user.
- isomorphism noun a one-to-one correspondence between all the elements of two sets, e.g. the instances of two classes, or the records in two datasets.
- item set noun A set of production rules which have an identical sequence of symbols between the right arrow (→) and the dot (•).
- iterative deepening search noun A type of depth-first search in which each row of the tree is searched incrementally, simulating a breadth-first search with less memory…
- kernelization noun A technique for creating algorithms for fixed-parameter tractable problems, involving a preprocessing stage in which inputs to the…
- Kleene closure noun The set of all strings of finite length made up of elements of a given set. (Then the Kleene closure is said to be of that given set. For a…
- Knuthian adj Of or relating to the work, or theory developed from the work, of American computer scientist and mathematician Donald Knuth.
- least significant byte noun The byte of a multibyte number with the least importance: that is, the byte stored last on a big-endian system or first on a little-endian…
- level noun Distance from the root node of a tree structure.
- Levenshtein distance noun The number of edits (replacements, deletions and insertions) required to change one string into another.
- lexical analysis noun The conversion of a stream of characters to a stream of meaningful tokens; normally to simplify parsing.