processor
Pluralprocessors
- 1The central processing unit of a computer, the main component that carries out program instructions.
The new laptop ships with an eight-core processor clocked at three gigahertz.
Upgrading the processor made the aging desktop noticeably faster.
SimilarCPU, chip, microprocessor
- 2A device that processes something, changing or transforming whatever is fed into it, such as food or data.
She pulsed the vegetables in the processor until they were finely chopped.
The recycling plant feeds crushed plastic into a processor that melts it into pellets.
Note
Most of its life is spent inside compounds, where the first word names what gets changed. A food processor is the kitchen machine that shreds vegetables, and a word processor is the machine that handles text. Jack Schofield, writing in 2019, lists the word processor among the separate devices a smartphone can now stand in for.
- 3A computing unit contained on a single integrated-circuit chip, common in computers and everyday electronic devices.
Each smart thermostat contains a processor no bigger than a fingernail.
Embedded processors control everything from car engines to coffee makers.
Similarmicroprocessor, chip, microchip
Note
Here the word counts chips: a computer can have two processors and still only one keyboard. The word comes with generations and product lines. Jack Schofield noted in 2017 that Intel brought out a new generation of processors every 12–18 months. In everyday talk it overlaps almost entirely with the central-processing-unit meaning. This sense stresses the single chip, while that one stresses the role the chip plays.
- 4A person or institution that processes things, such as foods, photographs, or applications.
The loan processor collected pay stubs and tax returns before sending the file to the underwriter.
Local dairy farmers sell their milk to a processor that turns it into cheese and butter.
Note
An agent noun built in the plainest way, process plus -or, and on record since 1909. It usually follows the thing being handled: a loan processor at a bank, a food or photo processor in industry. That pattern makes food processor ambiguous. It can be a firm turning milk into cheese, or the kitchen machine of the device meaning. Whether a person, company or appliance is meant tells them apart.
Practice
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Origin
First recorded in 1909, formed from "process" plus the suffix "-or".