ancilla

English

AI In plain words

Writing a short explanation…

Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.

ancilla

/ænˈsɪ.lə/

Rhymes with -ɪlə

Where it comes from

From Latin ancilla (“maid, slave-girl”).

noun ancillae

rare A maid. ‘And pass me that towel,’ added Ada, but the ancilla was picking up coins she had dropped in her haste […]
An auxiliary or accessory. The filter achieves this two-qubit filtering effect by using two ancilla photons as probes that detect whether or not the two input photons are in the desired states.
An ancilla bit. The circuit uses a single ancilla for each stabilizer generator.

Talk about this word

Cite this

MLA

"ancilla." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/ancilla. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

ancilla. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/ancilla

Chicago

"ancilla." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/ancilla.

BibTeX

@misc{ancilla_2026,
  title = {ancilla},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/ancilla},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}