electronic computer

English edit

Noun edit

electronic computer (plural electronic computers)

  1. (dated, retronym) A programmable computer.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:computer
    • 1956 November 8, Alexander R. Hammer, “Duplicator Still The ‘Work Horse’”, in The New York Times[1], →ISSN:
      Although glamour equipment such as the electronic computers have had most of the headlines in recent years, the mimeograph machine is still grinding out billions of copies of material a year.
    • 1963, James Allan Painter, “Editor's Preface”, in Stephen Maxfield Parrish, editor, A Concordance to the Poems of W. B. Yeats, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, →ISBN, page v:
      To invoke the aid of an electronic computer in mapping Yeats's private worlds of myth and symbol and Irish legend may well arouse disquiet.