computing

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The use of one or more computers to perform tasks, process information, and run software.

   Advances in computing have transformed nearly every industry.

   The company moved most of its computing to remote data centers.

   Similarcomputation, processing

   Note

   Usually a mass noun, and often led by a word saying where or for whom the machines work. Sharon Yull's BTEC First ICT Practitioners (2007) uses home computing to cover children looking things up for school, parents browsing for recreation, people working from home and retired 'silver surfers' keeping in touch. A modifier plus computing names a whole sphere of use, not a single task.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The academic study of computers, software, and the practice of programming them.

   He earned a degree in computing from a technical university.

   Computing as a field covers everything from algorithms to network security.

   Similarinformatics

   Note

   The name of a subject rather than an activity: it is what one studies, teaches or takes a degree in, and it divides into fields. It broadly overlaps with computer science, though it sometimes also takes in information technology and information systems. Only context separates it from the everyday use of computers, so a phrase like advances in computing can lean either way.

3. 3
   verb

   Present participle of compute.

   The software kept computing the trajectory until it reached a stable answer.

   Computing the average across millions of records strained the old machine.

   Note

   The verb form keeps the verb's grammar. As a participle it builds progressives with be (the software was computing the trajectory). As a gerund it still takes a direct object (computing the average). The noun of calculation needs of instead (the computing of orbital paths). That object, or its absence, is the quickest way to tell the two apart.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   The process or act of performing a calculation.

   The computing of orbital paths once filled notebooks with handwritten figures.

   Mental computing of large sums is a skill that takes years to master.

   Similarcalculation, computation, reckoning, arithmetic

   Note

   The literal reading, built transparently from compute and -ing: the doing of a calculation, whether in the head, on paper or by machine. The other noun uses narrow it. The computer sense and the name of the academic subject both start from this plain act of reckoning. Like most nouns in -ing, it is usually uncountable.

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