compute

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compute

/kəmˈpjuːt/ UK
/kəmˈpjut/ Canada, US
/kəmˈpjʉːt/ Australia, New Zealand
/kəmˈpjʉt/ Northern Ireland, Scotland

Rhymes with -uːt

Where it comes from

17th century. Borrowed from French computer, from Latin computō (“calculate, compute”). Doublet of count.

verb computes · computing · computed

transitive To reckon, calculate. Can anyone here compute the square root of 10201?
informal, intransitive To make sense. (commonly used in mimicry of a science fictional robot and spoken in a robotic voice; most frequently in negative constructs) Does that compute, or do I need to explain further?

noun

uncountable Computational processing power (number of operations per unit of time) or computational work (to be) done (number of operations). The GPU does not have enough on-chip SRAM memory for the parameters, and doesn't have enough compute to run the entire model in real time.

Translations

Every language

verb to reckon or calculate

Español	computar, calcular
日本語	計算する keisan suru
中文	計算 /计算 jìsuàn
Português	computar, calcular
Français	computer, calculer
Deutsch	berechnen, rechnen, errechnen
Italiano	computare, elaborare, calcolare
Русский	вычисля́ть vyčisljátʹ, вы́числить výčislitʹ, счита́ть sčitátʹ, посчита́ть posčitátʹ, счесть sčestʹ, подсчи́тывать podsčítyvatʹ

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Cite this

MLA

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

APA

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

Chicago

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

BibTeX

@misc{compute_2026,
  title = {compute},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/compute},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}