noun

the use of a computer to process data or perform calculations.
the act of calculating or reckoning.

computing British

/ kəmˈpjuːtɪŋ /

noun

the activity of using computers and writing programs for them
the study of computers and their implications

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

adjective

of or relating to computers

computing skills

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of computing

First recorded in 1640–50; compute + -ing ¹

Explanation

Computing is the act of calculating something––adding it up, multiplying it, or doing more complex math functions to it. Computers are named for this process, because they can compute faster than most people. The verb compute comes from a Latin word for pruning. You can think of it like cleaning up piles of data to get a clear result. If you run a shop and have lots of figures, for items sold and returned, and money paid for salaries and overhead, then you'll have to do some computing to know how much money you actually earned that day. It's also a type of engineering.

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Vocabulary lists containing computing

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

computing

Spiegel was already envisioning a future in which smartglasses, rather than phones with apps, were the future of computing.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026

Diraq is deploying a quantum computer directly into a commercial data center, marking a real-world example of hybrid computing.

From Barron's ● Sep. 1, 2026

For now, however, it doesn’t have any data centers in operation and has 800 megawatts of computing capacity under construction, according to the documents.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 31, 2026

Maintaining both entanglement and quantum coherence is one of the major difficulties facing quantum computing.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 31, 2026

Langley’s first female computing pool, started in 1935, had caused an uproar among the men of the laboratory.

From "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023