output

Pluraloutputs (some meanings)

Formsoutputs, outputting, output

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The total amount produced, created, or completed, especially over a given period or from a given effort.

   Economists tracked the nation's industrial output over the decade.

   The mill's output doubled once the new machinery was installed.

   Similarproduction, yield

   Oppositeinput

   Note

   The economist's sense, and the root of the rest: the word turns the phrasal verb put out into a noun, out plus put. Usually it is uncountable, as when a factory increases its output, but economists also speak of outputs in the plural for distinct goods. Steven Rosefielde's Red Holocaust (2009) writes of misdistributed outputs. GDP, in The Economist's words, measures the total value of output.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The data a computer sends out: to a device such as a monitor or printer, or from one program to another.

   The script wrote its output to a log file.

   Each function returns its output to the calling program.

   Similarresult

   Oppositeinput

   Note

   Computing uses the word both ways at once. As a mass noun it is measured like paper or text: six pages of output. As a count noun, one run's result is a single thing: a six-page output. Either way, the data may end on a screen or printer or pass straight into another program.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   How much power a given system, such as an engine or generator, produces.

   Engineers measured the generator's output during the test.

   The plant's electrical output peaks during the afternoon.

   Similarpower

   Oppositeinput

   Note

   Engineers use the word for an amount: the power a generator or plant actually produces. The same word also names the connection that power leaves through, the output terminal. So "the generator's output" can mean either the figure on the meter or the socket on the casing, and only context decides which.

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To send data out of a computer: to a device such as a monitor or printer, or to another program.

   The script will output a summary when it finishes.

   Most tools output their results in plain text.

   Similarprint, generate, produce, return

   Oppositeinput

   Note

   Here the subject is usually the machine or program, not a person: when I hit enter, it outputs a bunch of numbers. The object is the data itself, and a destination can follow with to, as in output to a printer or to another program. Past forms vary as they do for the production verb: output and outputted both occur.

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To produce, create, or complete something.

   The new system can output reports far faster than before.

   Skilled teams output high-quality work even under tight deadlines.

   Similarproduce, generate, create

   Note

   As a verb the word follows put: the past tense and past participle are usually output, unchanged, as in "we output 1400 units last year." Outputted also exists as a regular alternative. In economic use the verb takes a measured quantity of goods or units as its object.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   The terminal through which data or power is delivered from the source.

   Connect the monitor to the graphics card's output.

   The power supply's main output feeds the motherboard.

   Similarport, terminal

   Oppositeinput

   Note

   A shortened name for the output terminal, shared by computing and electrical engineering: the jack, port or socket where a signal or current leaves its source. Unlike the amounts named by the other technical senses, it is a physical thing. It can therefore be counted, as in a card with two outputs, and it is what a cable plugs into.

7. 7
   noununcountable

   The volume of a body fluid, such as blood or urine, that flows in a given time.

   The nurse recorded the patient's urine output throughout the night.

   Reduced cardiac output left the patient feeling weak and dizzy.

   Oppositeintake

   Note

   In clinical use the word measures a rate rather than a total: how fast a fluid such as blood or urine flows, not how much has gathered. That sets it apart from the economist's quantity produced, which counts a sum. The fluid is usually named first, as in urine output.

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