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START / NODE 429Present-Day English14th century–today
calculator
A person or device that calculates, inherited from a medieval human-reckoner word and the Latin counting-pebble family.
“A calculator was a person before it was a device. The medieval word named someone who counted or computed; the electronic machine inherited the human agent's title.”OPEN COMPLETE WORD DOSSIER ↗
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01
PARENT ROUTES1 REVIEWED RELATIONSHIP
Present-Day Englishcalculator
one who calculates; later especially a calculating machine or electronic device
↑GO DEEPER
Middle English · Middle English, 14th–15th centuriescalkelatourone who counts or computes; a mathematician
- SOUND CHANGE
- Middle English calkelatour loses unstressed material and stabilizes with the learned agent ending -or as calculator.
- SEMANTIC CHANGE
- The human reckoner sense survives while the agent label later transfers to mechanical and electronic calculating devices.
- SCHOLAR
- Merriam-Webster editors
- CONFIDENCE
- established
- CHRONOLOGY
- The word is reported from the 14th century; the source does not assign one first date to the machine sense.
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