Other forms: calculators
A calculator is a device that works out sums. A pocket calculator, use a calculator, the calculator battery.
The word named a person first: a calculator was somebody who did arithmetic for a living, and whole rooms of them worked out gunnery and navigation tables before machines took over. The Latin calculus means a pebble, from counting with stones.
1nouncalculatorA device that works out sums.
“You may use a calculator in the maths exam.”
calculator is a device.
Latin calculator means a reckoner, from calculus, a pebble used for counting. The word named people long before machines.
Latin
calculātor
Middle English
calkelatour
English, today
calculator
From Middle English calkelatour, from Latin calculātor. In the sense of a person, from Middle English calkelatour (“a mathematician, an astrologer”), borrowed from Latin calculātor, equivalent to calculate + -or. The other meanings arose in Modern English.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA