calculator

In the sense of a person, from Middle English calkelatour (“mathematician, astrologer”), borrowed from Latin calculātor, equivalent to calculate +‎ -or. The other meanings arose in Modern English.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkæl.kjə.leɪ.tə(ɹ)/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /kæl.kjə.leɪ.tɚ/, [ˈkʰæɫ.kjəˌleɪ̯.ɾɚ]

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calculator (plural calculators)

1. A mechanical or electronic device that performs mathematical calculations; sometimes, an electronic one specifically.

   Hypernyms: device, machine

   Hyponym: adding machine (coordinate to the narrower sense)

   Coordinate term: abacus

   electronic calculator;   pocket calculator

   The calculator on a bookkeeper's desk in the 1950s was an adding machine with mechanical guts.

   I told him to hand me a calculator and he jokingly placed an adding machine at my side.

2. (dated) A person who performs mathematical calculation.

   Synonyms: computer (archaic), reckoner (archaic)

   During the war, his grandmother had worked at the Bletchley Park decoding station as a calculator.

   • 2020, Paul Krugman, Arguing with Zombies: Economics, Politics, and the Fight for a Better Future, page 145:

     First, many real-world investors bear little resemblance to the cool calculators of efficient-market theory: they're all too subject to herd behavior, to bouts of irrational exuberance and unwarranted panic.

3. A person who calculates (in the sense of scheming).

   Near-synonyms: schemer, plotter; manipulator

   He revealed himself to be a cold-blooded calculator out to sabotage his colleagues.

   • 1838, [Edward Bulwer-Lytton], chapter X, in Alice or The Mysteries […], volume I, London: Saunders and Otley, […], →OCLC, book I, page 92:

     Talk not thus, I implore you, Evelyn: do not imagine me the worldly calculator that my enemies deem me.

   • 1858, John Cumming, Thy Word is Truth: an apology for Christianity, page 112:

     You have in the merchant the shrewd calculator of probable contingencies; we shall see that we have in the prophet the absolute proclaimer of necessary and inevitable facts.

4. (obsolete) A set of mathematical tables.

   Synonym: ready reckoner

• calculate

• ready reckoner
• slide rule
• tables
• Category:calculators on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons

• James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Calculator”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volume II (C), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, pages 27–28, column 3.

Unadapted borrowing from English calculator.

• IPA^(key): /kalkjuˈleitoɾ/ [kɐl̪.kjʊˈl̪iɪ.t̪oɾ̪]

calculator (Badlit spelling ᜃᜎ᜔ᜃ᜔ᜌᜓᜎᜒᜌ᜔ᜆᜓᜇ᜔)

1. calculator (device)

   Synonyms: calcu, kalkulador

From calculō (“I calculate”) +‎ -tor.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [kaɫ.kʊˈɫaː.tɔr]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [kal.kuˈlaː.t̪or]

calculātor m (genitive calculātōris, feminine calculātrīx); third declension

1. calculator, bookkeeper, accountant
2. computer, one versed in/teacher of arithmetic

Third-declension noun.

• calculātrīx

calculātor

1. second-person singular future passive imperative of calculō
   1. "thou shalt be calculated, thou shalt be computed"
   2. (figuratively) "thou shalt be considered as, thou shalt be esteemed"
2. third-person singular future passive imperative of calculō
   1. "it shall be calculated, it shall be computed"
   2. (figuratively) "she shall be considered as, she shall be esteemed"

• → Ancient Greek: καλκουλάτωρ (kalkoulátōr)

• “calculator”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• "calculator", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• calculator in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “calculator”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “calculator”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin

Borrowed from French calculateur; compare also English and Latin calculator. Equivalent to calcula +‎ -tor.

calculator n (plural calculatoare)

1. calculator (device)
2. computer

   Synonyms: computer, ordinator