ALGORITHM

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does algorithm mean? 

• ALGORITHM (noun)
  The noun ALGORITHM has 1 sense:

1. a precise rule (or set of rules) specifying how to solve some problem

  Familiarity information: ALGORITHM used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ALGORITHM (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A precise rule (or set of rules) specifying how to solve some problem

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

algorithm; algorithmic program; algorithmic rule

Hypernyms ("algorithm" is a kind of...):

formula; rule ((mathematics) a standard procedure for solving a class of mathematical problems)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "algorithm"):

sorting algorithm (an algorithm for sorting a list)

stemmer; stemming algorithm (an algorithm for removing inflectional and derivational endings in order to reduce word forms to a common stem)

Derivation:

algorithmic (of or relating to or having the characteristics of an algorithm)

 Context examples 

An open source lossless data compression algorithm that compresses most files more effectively than the more traditional gzip or ZIP, but is slower.

(bzip2 Algorithm, NCI Thesaurus)

An algorithm for assigning significance values to genes being tested for their ability to discriminate between microarray samples.

(Comparative Marker Selection, NCI Thesaurus)

A method to represent the consensus across multiple runs of a clustering algorithm, to determine the number of clusters in the data, and to assess the stability of the discovered clusters.

(Consensus Clustering, NCI Thesaurus)

An image that has been encoded using a lossy compression algorithm.

(Lossy Compressed Image, NCI Thesaurus)

Summarizes probe sets using the 'player out' statistical algorithm.

(Bioconductor caAffy Player Out Probe Summary Method, NCI Thesaurus)

Summarizes probe sets using the robust average 1-step Tukey biweight algorithm.

(Bioconductor caAffy MAS Probe Summary Method, NCI Thesaurus)

Using an algorithm called ClusterFinder, the researchers identified 3,118 distinct bacterial gene clusters (BGCs) from various parts of the human body.

(Human Body Microbes Make Antibiotics, Study Finds, NCCAM)

They then used computer algorithms and image processing software to deduce the locations of the shock waves based on distortions of the background pattern—an approach called the background-oriented schlieren technique.

(Seeing Shock Waves, EARTH OBSERVATORY)

The new technology is based on an innovative algorithm, and instead captures several coded images in one picture.

(World's Fastest Film Camera, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

A data compression algorithm that reduces the amount of information in the data, rather than just the number of bits used to represent that information.

(Lossy Compression, NCI Thesaurus)