quicksort

noun, verb — 2 senses

quicksort

noun

US /ˈkwɪkˌsɔɹt/

Etymology From Quick + sort, from its computational efficiency.

Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences A sorting algorithm that operates by recursively partitioning the items to be sorted into two sets.

Somewhat surprisingly, the average behaviour of quicksort is the same as the best behaviour.1987, Åke Wikström, Functional Programming Using Standard ML:

quicksort

verb

Etymology From Quick + sort, from its computational efficiency.

Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences To sort with such an algorithm.

1991, Maguire et al, Geographical Information Systems: Principles and Applications The first and last subsets are then recursively quicksorted.

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.