Computer

The word computer originally referred to a person who performs calculations, rather than a electronic machine.

1. The Etymological Roots

The word builds on the Latin verb computare, which is formed by combining two parts:

  • Com- (together)
  • Putare (to reckon, clear up, or think)

In Latin, computare literally meant "to reckon together" or "to calculate/count up."

2. First Recorded Use in English (1613) 

The word entered the English language in the early 17th century. Its earliest known written appearance occurs in 1613, in a book of satirical essays called The Yong Mans Gleanings by the English author Richard Brathwait:

"I have read the truest computer of Times, and the best Arithmetician that ever breathed; who deciphered your dayes, and discovered the number of your moneths."

Here, a "computer" was simply a human being skilled at mathematics, timekeeping, or arithmetic.

3. The Human Computers (1700s–1940s)

For over three centuries, "computer" was a formal job title.
  • Astronomy & Navigation: In the 18th and 19th centuries, teams of human computers were hired by observatories and naval offices to calculate complex planetary orbits, tide tables, and navigation charts.
  • Wartime Ballistics & Aerospace: During World War I, World War II, and the early years of NASA, large groups of human computers—frequently women—were employed to calculate artillery firing tables, aerodynamic stresses, and orbital trajectories by hand or using mechanical adding machines.

4. Transition to Electronic Machines (1940s)

As electronic calculating devices were invented in the mid-20th century, they were initially called "automatic computers" or "electronic computers" to distinguish them from human workers.
  • By the late 1940s and early 1950s, as electronic machines like the ENIAC and UNIVAC replaced manual calculation teams, the modifier "electronic" was gradually dropped. 
  • The noun computer shifted completely from describing the person performing the task to the machine itself.