database

Pluraldatabases

Formsdatabases, databasing, databased

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A collection of organized information in a regular structure, usually stored in a machine-readable format that a computer can access.

   Like an enormous, well-indexed filing cabinet where every record sits in its exact place.

   Researchers built a database to track migratory bird sightings across the country.

   The clinic's databases store patient histories going back two decades.

   Note

   A plain compound of data and base, and the everyday sense that the computing meanings narrow down. It covers any orderly store of information, and nothing in it requires a computer: a list of contacts kept in a personal organizer qualifies. What makes something a database rather than a pile of facts is regular structure, with every record shaped like the next.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A set of tables and related objects (queries, reports, and forms) organized as a single structured collection of data.

   Like a workbook of linked spreadsheets, each sheet a table feeding the others.

   The developer designed the database with separate tables for customers, products, and invoices.

   Their reporting database pulls information from several linked tables into one dashboard.

   Note

   Here the word names a container with parts. Tables hold the records, while queries, reports and forms are the objects built to read and present them. One database can hold several tables: a "books" database might have three and a "customers" database two. So the terms are not interchangeable. A table is one grid of records, and the database is the named collection that holds the tables and the tools around them.

3. 3
   nounmetonymicallycountable

   A software application for storing, retrieving, and manipulating a structured set of data.

   Like a librarian who not only shelves every book but retrieves and rearranges them on command.

   The team chose an open-source database to power their web application.

   Modern databases can process millions of queries per second.

   Note

   A loose, metonymic use that names the software after what it manages. Someone who asks "Which database do you use: MySQL or Oracle?" is asking about a program, not about any particular collection of records. The usage is common in conversation, but it can blur the line with the structured data itself. In careful technical writing, say which one you mean.

4. 4
   nounmetonymicallycountable

   A combination of structured data sets together with the programs used to work with them.

   Like a fully equipped workshop (raw materials and every tool) bundled as one working whole.

   The company migrated its complete database to a cloud platform last year.

   Maintaining these databases requires both the stored records and the applications that read them.

   Note

   The bundled meaning takes the shift behind the software sense one step further and counts data and programs as a single thing. It is the sense in play when a whole system is moved, backed up or said to be down, because talk of that kind does not separate the records from the application. When the distinction matters, name the part you mean.

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To enter data into a database so that it is stored in structured form.

   Like filing each new record into its proper slot in the system.

   Staff database each shipment as soon as it arrives at the warehouse.

   Once the survey closed, analysts databased thousands of responses for review.

   Similarlog, record, enter, catalog

   Note

   A verb made from the noun, and a regular one: databases, databasing, databased, with the final e dropped before -ing. It is transitive, its object is the information, and it often appears in the passive. James Lambert, writing in 2018, describes a citation collection that "was databased and coded for meaning." It keeps company with other verbs of processing data, as coded does there.

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