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Your word for today is: digital, n. and adj.
digital, n. and adj.
Pronunciation: Brit. /ˈdɪdʒɨtl/, U.S. /ˈdɪdʒɨdl/
Forms: lME digitalle, lME 16– digital.
Etymology: < classical Latin digitālis measuring a finger's breadth, in post-classical Latin also of or relating to the finger (8th cent. in a British source) < digitus finger (see digit n.) + -ālis-al suffix1. With use as adjective compare Italian digitale of or relating to a finger (1575); French digital is first recorded much later (18th cent.). With digital number (see sense B. 1) compare post-classical Latin digitalis numerus (1619 or earlier), Italian numero digitale (1562 or earlier).
Classical Latin digitalis is apparently not used as a noun; post-classical Latin digitalis is attested denoting a finger-ring (11th cent.) and a thimble (see digitalis n.).
A. n.
†1. A whole number less than ten; = digit n.1a. Obs.
?c1425 Crafte Nombrynge in R. Steele Earliest Arithm. in Eng. (1922) 33Of nombres, that one is clepede digitalle‥Another digitalle is a nombre with-in 10.
c1450 Art Nombryng in R. Steele Earliest Arithm. in Eng. (1922) 39Write a digital that is part of his composicioun.
2. Chiefly humorous. Any of the fingers (including the thumb) of the hand; = digit n.4a. Chiefly in pl. Now rare.
1822 Scott Fortunes of Nigel I. vi. 156For taking the ten horns o' the beast, ye may easily estimate by your digitals.
1840 Fraser's Mag. 22 397Hundreds of thousands vanish at the touch of royal digitals.
1859 E. Bulwer-Lytton What will he do with It? II. iv. ix. 57Who wear‥paste rings upon unwashed digitals.
1963 I. Stravinsky & R. Craft Dialogues & Diary 39He would direct his index finger aloft‥, then line up four darning-needle digitals from the other hand, and as points one to four were enumerated, strike them down like bowling pins.
3. Any of the keys on a keyboard instrument. Chiefly in pl. Now rare.
4. 1878 W. H. Stone Sci. Basis Music v. 62Colin Brown's Natural Fingerboard‥. The digitals consist of three separate sets‥The first, second, fourth, and fifth tones of the scale are played by the white digitals.
1891 Times 24 July 11/5The octave is provided with 20 digitals.
1917 H. J. Watt Psychol. of Sound vii. 131A series of proportions‥can be begun on any of the black or white digitals of the piano.
1959 R. Winston & C. Winston tr. E. Schenk Mozart & his Times vi. 399He now commenced a four-part fugal theme that was‥extremely difficult to produce expressively on this organ, which required great pressure on the digitals.
a. A digital timepiece, esp. a digital watch. Hence also: any piece of equipment with a digital display.
1975 Forbes 15 Feb. 59/1The Swiss, with 40% of the market and the biggest investment in traditional watchmaking, have been reluctant to switch to digitals.
1982 S. Townsend Secret Diary Adrian Mole 155Woke up with a panic attack to see that it was eight-fifty by my bedside digital!
1989 San Diego Union-Tribune (Nexis) 20 Dec. (Food section) 25Choose from the fancier electronic digitals, the old-fashioned but accurate balance scales, and the less precise but less expensive spring-action models.
1992 C. Willis Doomsday Bk. i. i. 4Montoya glanced impatiently at her digital.
2000 Tampa (Florida) Tribune (Nexis) 7 Nov. (Baylife section) 2Gore loves digitals and wears one of Timex's most complicated timepieces.
b. A device, piece of equipment, etc., which uses digital technology; (in later use) spec. a digital camera. Usu. in pl.
In quot. 1979 a digital recording.
1979 Washington Post 9 Sept. g1Will the sound‥be marginally superior to the hybrid digitals or will it be so decisively better?
1983 Telephone Engineer & Managem. (Nexis) 87 68The subscriber no longer has to put up with large bulky telephone exchanges. The new digitals are also much faster.
1990 Music Trades (Nexis) 137 103Acoustic pianos have always been sold on the basis of‥presenting the instrument as a priceless family heirloom.‥ By contrast, digitals are sold on slick engineering.
1998 N.Y. Mag. 30 Nov. 96/1A really kick-ass camera—one of those sleek little platinum Konica Q-M100V digitals.
2008 Globe & Mail (Toronto) (Nexis) 25 Oct. t7Even the smallest digitals now have features to help you improve your outdoor or wildlife photography.
5. Digital technology; digital media, as digital television, digital audio, etc.
1978 Business Week 10 July 36/3The performance benefits with digital techniques will be marginal because of the new tape. Audio consultant Craig L. Stark concurs, calling the new technology 'a viable alternative to digital'.
1986 Absolute Sound Winter 53Digital is here to stay. We intend to criticize it (and analogue) where it counts.
1992 Boston Herald (Nexis) 10 Jan. s16There are so many misperceptions among consumers about the differences between digital (CDs) and analog (LPs).
1998 Billboard 28 Nov. 67/2The world is switching to digital, and radio is in danger of being left behind.
2006 Chicago Tribune (Midwest ed.) 17 July iii. 6/5Consumers who are upgrading to digital will use the opportunity to splurge on a fancy high-def set.
B. adj.
I. Senses relating to numerical digits and (later) their use in representing data in computing and electronics. In later uses typically contrasted with analogue.
1. Designating a whole number less than ten; (of a number) represented as a series of digits (digit n.1a).
2. c1450 Art Nombryng in R. Steele Earliest Arithm. in Eng. (1922) 50Neither of the subtraccioun, tille it come to the first figure vnder the whiche is a digitalle nombre to be founde.
a1637 R. Fludd Mosaicall Philos. (1659) i. ii. 156After the rule of Algorism, the first 9 towards the right hand is a simple digital number [L. simplex digitus seu numerus digitalis].
1721 G. Hooper Inq. into State Anc. Meas. ii. 9A Tarif, or Multiplication Table of each digital number of Grains may be provided.
1834 D. Lardner Treat. Arithm., Pract. & Theoret. ii. 39The adoption of the nine digits and zero to express the digital numbers.
1849 Chambers's Information for People (new ed.) II. 564/2The first nine of these, called digits or digital numbers, represent, each, one of the numbers between one and nine.
1919 Official Gaz. (U.S. Patent Office) 1 Apr. 201/2The correct result is obtained without necessity of the operator pressing the keys to the left of the last digital number.
2004 A. Parker & J. Faulkner Mental Maths Strategies: Year 5 10/2By using the digits 0 to 9, we can make any counting number.‥ These are sometimes known as digital numbers.
a. Of signals, information, or data: represented by a series of discrete values (commonly the numbers 0 and 1), typically for electronic storage or processing.
Such data is commonly represented by discrete values of a physical quantity such as voltage or magnetic polarization, typically in binary form.
1940 U.S. Patent 2,207,537 1/1In the transmission of direct current digital impulses over a long line the characteristics of the line tend to mutilate the wave shape.
1952 Proc. IRE 40 475 (heading)A coincident-current magnetic memory cell for the storage of digital information.
1963 W. von Braun in Pop. Sci. Mar. 198/2Other data can be obtained most conveniently in digital form.
1969 Science 9 May 709/3The digital pulses, when received on the ground, were stored on magnetic tape.
1976 IEEE Trans. Information Theory 22 649/2Any digital signal can be copied precisely.
1984 N.Y. Mag. 5 Nov. 22/2These cute little platters can hold anywhere from 500 to more than 1,000 times the digital data of the standard five-and-a-quarter-inch floppy discs.
1996 K. Jeacle Amiga Surfin' i. 20Digital information represented by streams of 0s and 1s (called bits) in your computer.
2003 R. Dawkins Devil's Chaplain i. 28The genetic code is truly digital, in exactly the same sense as computer codes.
2008 Guardian (Nexis) 8 Aug. 32The aim was to translate into digital code the raw information that's embedded in the brain activity.
b. Of a computer or calculator: that operates on data in digital form; (of a storage medium) that stores digital data. Cf. analogue adj.1a.
See also digital calculator n., digital computer n. at Special uses 2.
1945 J. Eckert et al. Appl. Math. Panel Rep. 171.2R (title)Description of the ENIAC and comments on electronic digital computing machines.
1947 Electronic Engin. 19 178Digital computing apparatus works out problems by methods which are basically the same as those which would be employed if an attempt were made to perform the calculations on paper.
1957 Times 21 Sept. 13/13A pioneer of the design and construction of automatic electronic digital calculating machines.
1966 IEEE Trans. Magnetics 2 1/1The performance of thin magnetic tape as a digital storage medium.
1979 Financial Rev. (Austral.) 7 Nov. 28/6Digital discs are on the market already.
1984 F. Rose Into Heart of Mind (1985) i. 18The development of the digital calculating machine has set us on a path from which there is no turning back.
1995 R. Pepperell Post-human Condition vi. 129Most of today's computers are digital—they store and manipulate information as a series of binary codes.
2003 J. A. Ippolito Understanding Digital Photogr. ii. 40The most common types of digital storage media are CompactFlash cards and Microdrives.
2005 M. Weber Philos. Exper. Biol. ii. 42A specific computer algorithm can be implemented either on a silicon-based digital machine or on a computer that works with vacuum tubes.
c. Of technologies, media, etc.: involving digital data; making use of digital computers or devices. Also: of or relating to such technologies or media.
See also digital radio n.2, digital television n.1, digital photography n. at Special uses 2.
1948 Math. Tables & other Aids to Computation 3 213 (heading)Electronic digital computing in England.
1959 Times 13 Oct. 11/7Data are stored in an electronic 'memory' or 'information bank', using digital techniques.
1965 Science 15 Jan. 279/2Optical, electro-optical and digital image processing techniques.
1977 Rolling Stone 19 May 96/3The problem with PCM or digital recording in the past has been that the tape medium could not accommodate the millions of pulses per second required.
1981 Economist 28 Feb. 89/1A digital [television] system is much more robust.
1995 New Musical Express 28 Oct. 58/2He'd been holding up for years doing a retrospective‥because he was dissatisfied so much with the digital recording systems.
1999 Which? Apr. 28/3If you're hard of hearing, most of digital satellite's major channels have subtitles—but digital terrestrial currently has them only on BBC2 and Channel 4.
2008 G. Lamberson Cheap Scares! 3Digital filmmaking is here to stay, and low budget auteurs are not the only filmmakers using this technology.
d. Of an electronic device: that makes use of data in digital form.
See also digital camera n., digital television n.2, digital radio n.1.
1964 B. V. Rollin Introd. Electronics xiv. 188 (heading)Digital voltmeter or potentiometer.
1968 Brit. Med. Bull. 24 255/1In the digital averager we have designed and built, only 1,024 bits are available for each of four channels.
1976 Proc. Soc. Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers 78 152The sensor is part of a digital camera system.
1986 Billboard 26 Apr. 54/2He experienced similar problems while engineering Dylan's 'Infidels' on the 3M 32-track digital machine.
1998 GQ Aug. 45 (advt.)With these palm-sized digital camcorders, you don't just enjoy professional image quality; you also get instant playback on your TV.
2009 N.Y. Times (Nexis) 6 June b1Millions of consumers have had to buy digital television sets or converter boxes and special antennas for their old sets.
e. Of a sound recording, image, video, etc.: encoded in the form of digital data; recorded using digital equipment.
1969 Science 3 Oct. 54/1The limb appears in‥a few real-time digital A-camera frames.
1979 Forbes (Nexis) 10 Dec. 85Digital music is perfect—there's no hiss of tapes because it's a mathematical description of music rather than an analog reproduction.
1984 Sunday Times 14 Oct. 40/2The performances could hardly be more authentic, with magnificent playing and an ample resonance in this fine digital recording.
1993 N.Y. Mag. 15 Mar. 59/2Compact discs, with their scratch-free, brilliant digital sound, are the home-music standard.
1999 Daily Tel. 28 Jan. (Connected section) 3/3 (caption)Digital films shot and edited on DV camcorders and everyday PCs.
2003 J. Cox Digital Nature Photogr. i. 27Within a few months of shooting digital images, I accumulated about 4 gigabytes (GBs) of images on my hard drive.
2009 Guardian Unlimited (Nexis) 9 Dec.,Low, released by rapper Flo Rida in 2007, was the decade's most successful digital song, selling 5·2m copies.
f. Designating a musical instrument or musical equipment which stores, processes, or produces audio signals in digital form; spec. designating an electronic musical instrument intended to simulate the sound of an acoustic one by means of computer technology, typically through the digital storage and playback of audio recordings, as digital piano. Also (of music or sound): produced digitally; having distinctive tonal qualities associated with digital instruments or equipment.
1970 Official Gaz. (U.S. Patent Office) 875 240/1A digital electronic organ wherein a digital representation of an organ pipe waveshape is stored in a memory.
1979 Computer Music Jrnl. 3 ii. 64A sixteen-bit mini-computer is the heart of the Synclavier—the world's first and only commercially available digital synthesizer.
1989 Forte Spring 6/1The fact that Roland calls the KR–33 a 'Digital Keyboard', and not digital piano, synth, nor home keyboard, gives you an idea of the instrument's crossover potential.
1992 Face Apr. 25/3Digital beats are accompanied with percussion, chunky bass and, occasionally, some light jazzy guitar.
2003 Pop. Sci. July 11/1Many audiophiles‥consider analog to be softer sound in comparison to harsher digital tones.
2008 Belleville (Ont.) Intelligencer (Nexis) 14 June 30He‥now plays a digital piano in his apartment so as not to wake the neighbours at 5:30 a.m.
3. Designating a timepiece or other instrument which displays information in the form of individual numerical digits rather than using hands or pointers on a dial, typically by means of an LED or liquid crystal display, as digital clock, digital watch, etc. Also: designating the numerical display itself, as digital display. Cf. analogue adj.2.
1958 Science 10 Jan. 98 (advt.)Digital clock covers a 24-hour period.
1967 Pop. Sci. Aug. 158/1The co-pilot calls out a pair of figures that the guidance computer flashes upon a digital display board.
1976 M. Apple Oranging of Amer. 67The digital thermometer lies in the yoghurt just as snugly as if the mixture were a patient's milky tongue.
1980 J. Wainwright Dominoes ii. 53The receptionist turned her wrist, consulted her expensive digital watch, then answered her own question.
1989 P. Horowitz & W. Hill Art of Electronics (ed. 2) i. 57/1LEDs are also used for digital displays, most often the familiar 7-segment numeric display you see in calculators.
1996 Chef's Catal. Spring 56/2Features programmable digital timer and drip interrupt.
2005 Computer Buyer May 88/2A type of liquid crystal display (LCD), just like the screen of a digital watch.
4. Involving or relating to digital or computer technology, esp. the Internet; (also, of a person) computer-literate, making use of digital or Internet technology. Cf. to go digital at Phrases.
1983 Electronics 28 July 50/2The worldwide digital revolution.
1992 B. Sterling Hacker Crackdown 300In a postindustrial, digital world, the idea of regulated monopolies is bad.
1994 N.Y. Times 2 Jan. iv. 5/1The commercialization of the net is only in its infancy and corporate America is suddenly in a mad rush for new digital markets.
2001 D. Brown Deception Point cix. 452Senator Sexton had embraced the 'digital office' to maniacal proportions, eschewing the overflow of file cabinets for the compact, searchable simplicity of his personal computer.
2004 Advocate (Baton Rouge, Louisiana) (Nexis) 12 May 5Educators must learn to accommodate the expectations and needs of digital students.
2008 New Yorker 14 Jan. 33/1Lawrence Lessig‥has long been a student of digital culture.
5. Designating a virtual, computer-mediated counterpart of an object that exists in the physical world.
II. Senses relating to fingers or finger-like structures.1991 Unix World Jan. 66/1Think of Photo CD, say Kodak executives, as a 'digital negative' that can preserve images for display years into the future.
1994 .net Dec. 19/2Cybercash will enable consumers to instruct their banks to place money in a 'digital wallet'.
2004 Orange County (Calif.) Reg. (Nexis) 28 Nov.,Convenience, delivery time and the retailer's track record play a big part in whether I add a product to my digital shopping cart.
2008 N.Y. Times (National ed.) 8 May c1/1A microchip converts your pen strokes into digital ink.
6. Of or relating to a digit (digit n.4a); (also) that uses or involves a finger or fingers.
1656 T. Blount Glossographia,Digital, pertaining to a finger.
1675 J. Smith Christian Relig. Appeal i. vii. 61It was the Egyptians care to keep the Original of their Deities as obscure as the head of their Nilus: of which they gave a digital Demonstration, in their painting their Mercury with his hand laid upon his mouth; thereby teaching his Priests to seal up their lips.
1733 G. Douglas tr. J. B. Winslow Anat. Expos. Struct. Human Body II. iv. 17At the ends of the Fingers, these digital Arteries [Fr. arteres digitales] communicate and unite with each other.
1796 W. Rowley Trans. Princ. Ref. Anat. Plates 21/1The digital veins of the hand; arise from the extremities of the arteries.
1826 S. Smith in Edinb. Rev. 44 51Here are 160 hours employed in the mere digital process of turning over leaves!
1840 G. V. Ellis Demonstr. Anat. 410The digital nerves of the superficial branch of the ulnar are two.
1874 Athenæum 30 May,A lady, with an unparalleled degree of digital dexterity.
1903 A. Bierce Coll. Wks. (1909) IV. 26O ye editors and orators, consent to hear my lay! Rest a little while the digital and maxillary muscles And attend to what a Venerable Person has to say.
1963 Amer. Jrnl. Nursing 63 85/1If the severance of a digital nerve goes unrecognized, tactile sensation in the fingers is lost.
2000 G. J. Barker-Benfield Horrors of Half-known Life (ed. 2) x. 109He could emulate 'the finger of God' by digital examination and repair of reproductive organs.
7. Anat. Shaped like a finger or a hollow impression made by a finger. Cf. Special uses 1.
Chiefly in fixed collocations. Recorded earliest in digital cavity n. at Special uses 1.
1786 J. Aitken Princ. Anat. & Physiol. I. 14On the under surface of the petrous portion is a thimble-like or digital cavity, that lodges the top of the internal jugular vein.
1861 J. Leidy Elem. Treat. Human Anat. vi. 315 (note)Appendix, or appendicula vermiformis;‥digital appendix.
1868 C. S. Bate & J. O. Westwood Hist. Brit. Sessile-eyed Crustacea II. 254On each side, near the posterior extremity, exist two digital processes, the secondary appendages of the maxilla.
1896 F. S. Dennis in F. S. Dennis Syst. Surg. IV. 55A subsynovial lipoma consists of a growth of normal fat which is digital in shape, projects into the joint, and is covered by the synovial membrane.
1930 H. G. Newth Marshall & Hurst's Junior Course Pract. Zool. (ed. 11) xiii. 334On the posterior surface of the bone, is a deep pit, the‥digital fossa.
2005 Jrnl. Human Evol. 48 545/2The digital impressions are very numerous in the anterior region of the frontal lobe.
†8. Of a foot or limb: having separate or divided digits or toes; hence digital-footed adj. Cf. digitate adj.1. Obs.
1833 C. Bell Hand 88There are some very rare instances of a horse having digital extremities.
1887 S. Ferguson Ogham Inscript. 148The digital feet unite these‥examples with other symbolisms‥Here also are found digital-footed equine figures.
Phrases
intr.to go digital: to start using digital or computer technology. Cf. sense B. 4.
1964 Electronics 18 May 3/2A comparison of factors that influence the decision to go digital or analog.
1974 Pop. Sci. Dec. 82/1Some [quartz digital watches] are less than $100. If you're thinking of going digital, here's what you need to know.
1984 N.Y. Mag. 15 Oct. 25/1The Oxford English Dictionary is going digital. A $10-million, two-year project is now under way to convert the authoritative lexicon into bits and bytes.
1993 R. Rucker et al. Mondo 2000 54/1The world economic and social order went completely digital. And so crime went digital too.
2008 T. Nein in C. Larson Heroes among Us iii. 37The last couple of years we went digital and I worked with computers.
Special uses
S1. (In sense B. 7).†digital cavity n. Obs. a cavity shaped like a thimble or finger; spec. the occipital portion of the lateral ventricle of the brain.
1786*Digital cavity [see sense B. 7].
1798 A. Bell Anatomia Britannica iii. 25/2The anterior part of the digital cavity of the lateral ventricles.
1836 Lancet 28 May 294/2The digital cavities on both sides present a yellow ramollissement of the cerebral matter.
digital fossa n. now rare a depression in the neck of the femur, overhung by the tip of the greater trochanter, into which the tendon of the obturator externus muscle is inserted.
1825 H. Mayo Course Dissections iv. 258Thus in the *digital fossa branches of the gluteal, sciatic, internal and external circumflex arteries, meet and anastomose.
1855 L. Holden Human Osteol. 148Behind the neck of the femur, and beneath the projecting angle of the trochanter major, you will find a deep excavation, called the 'digital fossa'.
1930 H. G. Newth Marshall & Hurst's Junior Course Pract. Zool. (ed. 11) xiii. 334On the posterior surface of the bone, is a deep pit, the‥digital fossa.
digital impression n. a depression in the surface of a bone resembling the imprint of a finger; spec. any of the shallow depressions on the inner surface of the cranium, corresponding to the cerebral convolutions.
S2. 1775 S. F. Simmons tr. C. Person Elements Anat. & Animal Œcon. i. 10There are some [depressions] called *digital impressions, from their resemblance to the traces of a finger on soft bodies.
1883 New Sydenham Soc. Lexicon,Digital impressions, the grooves on the inner surface of the cranial bones which correspond to the convolutions of the brain; so called from their shape.
1939 Lancet 1 Apr. 770/1A radiogram taken two and a half months after the operation showed a great change in the size, shape, and contour of the skull; moreover, digital impressions had nearly all disappeared.
2005 Jrnl. Human Evol. 48 545/2The digital impressions are very numerous in the anterior region of the frontal lobe.
digital art n. art created or modified using a computer or other digital medium; cf. computer art n.(b) at computer n.Compounds 5.
1978 Chicago Tribune 17 Sept. ii. 18/2 (advt.)A knowledge of modern *digital art, a strong analog background and BSEE or MSEE are pluses.
1998 Guardian 15 June ii. 13/3Imaginaria, the ICA's cybertastic exhibition of digital art, displays about as much imagination as a dead lightbulb.
2006 T. Kuchenbuck in F. Chapelle & C. Kattenbelt Intermediality in Theatre & Performance iii. 178Another feature of digital art is the improvement of realistic illusion from the renaissance perspective, to photography, to film, to computer design and computer animation.
digital audio n. audio data stored, processed, or transmitted digitally; cf. digital audio broadcasting n., digital audio tape n.
1969 Proc. National Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 63 590Some terminals on the system are also equipped with *digital audio.
1984 Jrnl. Audio Engin. Soc. 32 394Most professional applications of digital audio require a large number of channels to be available.
2005 Tallahassee (Florida) Democrat (Nexis) 29 May,Moorer‥counts among his achievements an Emmy for his groundbreaking digital audio work.
digital audio broadcasting n. a technique or system of broadcasting using digital audio signals transmitted over radio channels; abbreviated DAB.
1980 Japan Econ. Jrnl. (Nexis) 12 Aug. 21As PCM *digital audio broadcasting becomes a reality, digital audio discs will replace the present analog discs.
1993 New Scientist 13 Mar. 22/3Digital audio broadcasting (DAB)‥will provide sound quality equal to that of a CD.
2007 M. C. Keith Radio Station (ed. 7) i. 28/2Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) makes analog amplitude modulation (AM) and frequency modulation (FM) outmoded systems.
digital audio tape n. magnetic tape used for storing audio signals in digital form; the cassette in which this tape is contained, (in later use) spec. one smaller in size than an ordinary analogue cassette; (also) this format of cassette; abbreviated DAT; cf. digital compact cassette n.
1978 Computer Music Jrnl. 2 63/2For direct digital synthesis (or playback of *digital audio tape) a 14 bit DAC‥may be followed by a VCA for expansion of the dynamic range.
1998 J. R. Voit & E. Walker in R. Peck et al. Statist. Case Stud. ix. 100High quality Digital Audio Tapes (DAT) and equipment were used throughout the study.
2008 Sunday Age (Melbourne) (Nexis) 20 Jan. 8Both digital audio tape and minidisc were envisaged as successors to cassettes‥but neither caught on.
digital calculator n. (originally) a digital computer; (later) a calculator which operates on data in digital form, esp. a pocket one having a digital display (cf. sense B. 3).
1946 Math. Tables & other Aids to Computation 2 185The Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, the first of the large all-purpose *digital calculators developed during the war.
1975 Pop. Sci. Jan. 101/3 (advt.)There's a lot more to digital electronics than just the numbers! True, that's what you see on more and more products like digital calculators, clocks and watches.
1995 Salt Lake Tribune (Nexis) 26 Apr. b8Wirick eschews most modern technology: he totals customers' bills on a small digital calculator.
digital camera n. a camera which captures images (and often video and sound) in digital form rather than on photographic film.
An image is captured in a typical digital camera by focusing light on to a sensor, which converts it into discrete electronic signals (see charge-coupled device n. at charge n.1Additions).
1961 U.S. Patent 2,994,863 2The apparatus of the invention‥may be characterized as a multiple target reading *digital camera or general purpose digital camera.
1983 InfoWorld (Nexis) 17 Oct. 8The new digital camera, called the Model 610, brings a high level of computer-image processing to desktop computers.
1995 Daily Tel. 14 Nov. 18/6Photography's future may well lie with filmless digital cameras which record still video images on to a memory chip.
2007 New Yorker 20 Aug. 25/2Illuminated by the glisten and flare of thousands of digital cameras.
digital cash n. money which can be transferred electronically from one party to another; spec. (a) credit recorded on a rechargeable card, from which the value of a purchase can be debited at a point-of-sale terminal and transferred to the retailer; (b) credit recorded in an electronic account which can be debited when a purchase is made over the Internet; cf. e-cash n.
1991 Sci. Amer. June 12/2David Chaum of the Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science in Amsterdam‥is pushing '*digital cash' based on 'smart' credit cards and advanced encryption techniques.
1996 Times (Electronic ed.) 24 Jan.,Digital cash‥should make cybershopping as safe as telephone shopping.
2000 Econ. Affairs 20 4/2Online currencies might also be used in the 'real' world, through the use of a card capable of holding and transferring encrypted digital cash.
2005 Associated Press State & Local Wire (Nexis) 21 June,PayPal‥creates 'digital cash' by accepting credit card payments from its users and then delivering the payments to a designated recipient.
digital compact cassette n. a tape cassette on which audio signals could be stored in digital form; (in later use) spec. one of the same size and shape as an ordinary analogue cassette; (also) this format of cassette; abbreviated DCC.
1983 Computer Music Jrnl. 7 5/2Sony planned to introduce *digital compact cassette tapes.
1990 Dallas Times Herald 9 Oct. b1/5Tandy is one of several companies teaming with Philips Consumer Electronics‥to produce a 'Digital Compact Cassette' system that could play both specially designed digital tapes and standard cassette tapes.
1992 Economist 30 May 97/1Sony is out to position the Mini Disc as a direct rival to the tape-based Digital Compact Cassette.
2002 Times (Nexis) 12 Nov. (Business section) 23Neither pre-recorded minidiscs nor digital compact cassettes made it‥as mainstream formats.
digital compression n. (more fully digital signal compression) the compression of digital signals, used to increase the rate at which information can be transmitted; cf. compression n.Additions b.
1970 U.S. Patent 3,509,558 1Methods of *digital compression have certain disadvantages‥in that they generally require the use of relatively high voltages.
1990 What Satellite July 41/2They're looking at the possibilities of getting a number of channels out of one transponder, by digital compression and splitting frequencies.
2008 Daily Mail (Nexis) 12 Feb. 36Hundreds of stations can be broadcast, using digital compression to make their signals 'smaller' than analogue ones.
digital computer n. a computer which operates on data in digital form; contrasted with analogue computer n. at analogue n. and adj.Special uses.
By the mid 1970s, nearly all new computers were digital.
1946 P. Crawford in Moore School Lect. (1985) 383The speed and flexibility of *digital computers.
1976 Pop. Mech. Oct. 180/3We have a digital computer; Chrysler has an analog. The digital can match engine requirements faster than an analog.
2005 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 14 July 13/4Neither Wiener nor von Neumann nor Shannon‥foresaw the microprocessors that would make digital computers small and cheap and reliable.
digital delay n. a precise time delay of an electronic signal; (now) spec. an audio effect in which an input signal is digitally stored and played back after a given period of time, typically used to simulate the acoustic properties of a particular type of room.
1960 U.S. Patent 2,925,219 1A series of parallel channels, each channel having a characteristic *digital delay.
1992 Car Feb. 143/1The information from each of the speakers nestles in your ear at precisely the same time, thanks to a tunable digital delay.
2008 Seattle Times (Nexis) 6 June i5Frisell's woozy, reverbed sound‥and his deft use of digital delay have become standard operating procedure for a whole generation of guitarists.
digital divide n. (a) a division between those in favour of the extensive use of digital technology (esp. computers) and those against it; (b) (now the usual sense) the gulf between those who have ready access to current digital technology (esp. computers and the Internet) and those who do not; (also) social or educational inequality resulting from this.
1995 Columbus (Ohio) Disp. 19 Dec. 8f,His take, though, is that the zealots on both sides of the *digital divide are 'full of hooey'.
1996 G. A. Poole in N.Y. Times (Nexis) 29 Jan. d3/3The digital divide between these two schools in the heart of Silicon Valley provides perhaps the most striking example anywhere in the nation of a widening gap—between children who are being prepared for lives and careers in the information age, and those who may find themselves held back.
2008 Guardian 7 Feb. (Technology section) 3/1Initiatives such as the OLPC and the Classmate are intended to help bridge the digital divide. But security experts warn that there could be an unforeseen negative effect.
digital download n. an audio or video recording which is encoded in digital form and made available for downloading via the Internet; cf. download n.2.
1994 Billboard 26 Mar. n30/1All the new outlets people have for buying music‥. Record clubs, direct mail, TV home shopping, digital interactive TV, computer online services, vending machines, *digital-download kiosks.
2000 InfoWorld 8 May 34/3Miramax is testing the waters via a partnership with SightSound in April to enable digital downloads of 12 of its movies.
2009 C. Anderson Free ix. 154Radiohead made more money from the digital downloads before the release of the physical CD than the total take, across all formats, of its previous album.
digital economy n. an economy which functions primarily by means of digital technology, esp. electronic transactions made using the Internet.
1994 San Diego Union-Tribune 1 Mar. b5/3This new technology [cryptography] also provides digital signatures to authenticate transactions and messages, and allows for digital money, with all the implications that has for an electronic *digital economy.
2004 BRW 9 Dec. 66/3The country is using mature digital technology for the simultaneous development of a basic infrastructure and a digital economy.
digital highway n. = information superhighway n. at information n.Compounds 2.
1966 Brit. Patent 1,022,683 5/1The *digital highway can‥derive a digital output according to the setting of the DAC.
1987 Network World (Nexis) 1 June 29The wideband digital highways promised by ISDN are strategically important to users and providers alike, but are useless by themselves.
2008 Grand Rapids (Mich.) Press (Nexis) 21 Feb. b3While these alert e-mails are sent quickly, how fast they move on the digital highway is out of administrators' control.
digital locker n. Computing a location on a network (esp. the Internet) at which a user can remotely store and subsequently retrieve files.
1999 MacLogin Help Needed in schl.sig.edtech (Usenet newsgroup) 18 Feb.,A shareware program called MacLogin‥. This authenticates a network login and mounts the network server where the user's folder ('*digital locker' for our students) resides.
2008 Gizmodo (Nexis) 23 Apr.,All your apps and files‥are stored online in a digital locker, and you can access them from anywhere, no matter what computer you're using.
digital logic n. a logical system in which each variable can take one of only two values, as true/false, on/off, etc.; cf. Boolean algebra at Boolean adj.
1952 Math. Tables & Other Aids to Computation 6 42A different type of *digital 'logic' from that used in the general purpose digital computers.
1974 Computers & Biomed. Res. 7 294Biomedical research has seen the increasing use of digital logic not only in digital computer systems but in a variety of special purpose laboratory controllers.
2003 Age (Melbourne) (Nexis) 7 May (Educ. section) 9The physicist in me marvels at the beauty of these digital logic circuits.
digital money n. money represented and held in a digital form which can be transferred electronically from one party to another; = digital cash n.; cf. electronic money n. at electronic adj.Special uses.
1984 Amer. Banker 17 Oct. 12/4It [sc. the computer] is 'an enormously liberating development—one that could give us instant access and control over our assets as *digital money'.
1994 Guardian 30 June (Online section) 8/3A more simple keying reader reveals what's on the [Mondex] card. It's cybercash, paramoney, telemoney, offline digital money, paperless banking or your ticket to the infobahn.
2007 Vanity Fair July 94/1This year, Kenya was one of the first countries in the world to introduce digital money. Now you can wire money to anybody in the country who has a Safaricom mobile phone.
digital photo n. = digital photograph n.
1986 Credit World May–June 37/1The optical credit card has ample memory capacity to store *digital photos, signatures, voice prints, fingerprints, [etc.].
2008 W. Wang My New Mac xxviii. 247Rather than toss out less than perfect digital photos, you can make them better by editing them with iPhoto.
digital photograph n. a photographic image captured and stored in digital form; a photograph taken with a digital camera.
1962 IBM Jrnl. Res. & Devel. 6 290A computer program has been written to manipulate a '*digital photograph' in accordance with the formulas.
1992 N.Y. Times (Nexis) 3 Nov. a16The C.I.A. and several military offices review the digital photographs the satellites send back.
2007 Scouting May–June 8/3Digital photographs should be taken using the camera's highest quality setting.
digital photography n. photography in which images are captured and stored in digital form; the use of a digital camera to take photographs.
1972 Morning Herald (Uniontown, Pa.) 1 Aug. 9/2A scheme for *digital photography, now being used to send photographs from Mars.
1996 Guardian 14 Dec. 6/3Digital photography‥is the photographic movement of the future.
2007 P. Skinner Sports Photogr. 27/2With the popularity of digital photography, some films have been discontinued.
digital rights n. the rights to publish, disseminate, or grant access to (copyrighted) material in digital or electronic form.
1990 Arch. & Museum Informatics Winter 3/1Photographers are‥looking closely to the ASCAP model to determine if a mechanism can be established that will charge users of *digital rights for use and distribute the income to owners of rights in proportion to the use of their images.
2008 P. Nguyen in J. M. Cherbo et al. Understanding Arts & Creative Sector in U.S. x. 167Corbis focused its attention on amassing the digital rights to renowned collections such as that of‥the National Gallery.
digital rights management n. the control or protection of digital rights using various technologies to prevent unauthorized access, copying, etc.
1996 PR Newswire (Nexis) 17 Jan.,As an industry consultant Bob has been a leader in developing business strategies and cooperative relationships in the area of *digital rights management and content distribution.
2005 Discover May 23/1When you buy a song online that can be played only on an authorized computer or rent a DVD that has been encrypted to prevent it from being copied to a hard drive, you're dealing with the long arm of digital rights management.
digital root n. Math. the digit obtained when all the digits of a number are added and the process is repeated on successive results until the outcome is a single digit.
1917 H. E. Dudeney Amusements in Math. 157/1If you add together the digits of any number and then, as often as necessary, add the digits of the result, you must ultimately get a number composed of one figure. This last number I call the '*digital root'.
1951 Amer. Math. Monthly 58 205Club reports‥. Digital roots and The casting out of nines, by Donald Walsh.
1973 Sci. Amer. Dec. 120/1One way to do it makes use of the old accountant's trick for checking addition by digital roots.
2004 Amer. Math. Monthly 111 628 (heading)Digital Roots of Fibonacci numbers.
digital signature n. Computing a digital code (generated and authenticated by public key encryption) which is attached to an electronically transmitted document to verify its contents and the sender's identity.
1976 IEEE Trans. Information Theory 22 649/2Since any digital signal can be copied precisely, a true *digital signature must be recognizable without being known.
1988 Computerworld (Nexis) 6 Apr. 10Doing business electronically without cryptographic protection or digital signatures is very much like doing business on typed postcards.
2005 D. Flanagan Java in Nutshell (ed. 5) v. 289Unlike a pen-and-paper signature‥a digital signature is very difficult, if not impossible, to forge.
digital subscriber line n. Computing and Telecomm. = DSL n. at D n.Additions.
1978 Internat. Zurich Seminar Digital Communications d5.1/1The *digital subscriber line should carry two 'user channels' for speech and other end-to-end information, and two dedicated signalling channels, one for each direction of transmission.
1985 Telephone Engineer & Managem. (Nexis) 1 June 74A key recommendation is the standard format for the Digital Subscriber Line (DSL). This is the facility which connects an individual customer station to the network.
2003 N.Y. Times (National ed.) 31 July e7/6A digital subscriber line connection, or D.S.L., takes advantage of this extra room on the line and uses it to send digital data back and forth.
digital subscriber loop n. Computing and Telecomm. = DSL n. at D n.Additions.
1976 A. Even-Chaim in IEE Internat. Symp. Subscriber Loops & Services 137 183 (title)A *digital subscriber loop using demand assignment.
1996 Hollywood Reporter (Nexis) 18 Dec.,Telephone providers are eyeing a competitor to another high-speed technology called Digital Subscriber Loop that offers almost as much bandwidth as cable.
2007 M. M. Mourad & A. N. Tantawy in C. Douligeris & D. N. Serpanos Network Security xv. 441The number of homes connected to digital subscriber loop (DSL) or digital cable TV networks is fast increasing.
digital-to-analogue adj. Electronics designating or relating to a device or system which converts digital signals to analogue ones; esp. in digital-to-analogue converter.
1950 C. B. Tompkins & J. H. Wakelin High-speed Computing Devices (Engin. Res. Associates) xv. 393A *digital-to-analog converter employed in the Bell Telephone Laboratories p.c.m. system makes use of the exponential decay characteristics of the RC circuit.
1991 Creem Apr.–May 108/5The amplifier-less CD/tuner head unit has simply the finest, crispest CD selection you can get into your car, primarily because it employs a MASH digital-to-analog conversion system.
2008 Wyoming Tribune Eagle (Nexis) 2 Mar. a3If you have an analog television, you'll need to get a digital-to-analog set-top converter box to get over-the-air signal.
digital tuner n. Electronics (a) a tuner for receiving analogue signals which incorporates either a digital tuning mechanism or a digital display (or frequently both) (now rare); cf. digital tuning n.; (b) a tuner for receiving digital signals, typically used in a digital radio or digital television; cf. digibox n.3.
[1968 Electronic Engin. 40 150 (heading)Frequency lock for digital f.m. tuner.]
1976 Electronics 1 Apr. 86/1One of the latest *digital tuners is the Omega.
1995 Kay & Co. (Worcester) Catal. Autumn–Winter 635/1Stereo mini hi fi system.‥ Long, medium and stereo FM waveband, RDS digital tuner with 32 pre-set station memory.
2004 Chicago Tribune (Midwest ed.) 11 July iv. 2/1The Federal Communications Commission's new plug-and-play standard will require built-in digital tuners in all new sets.
digital tuning n. Electronics (a) (in a analogue radio receiver) a facility which enables the tuning frequency to be varied by discrete amounts, often with the aid of a digital display; (b) a tuning facility for receiving digital signals (as in a digital radio or digital television receiver).
1972 H. C. Okean et al. in IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory & Techniques 20 155/1S-band step-tuned transistor oscillator assembly with better than half-octave *digital tuning range.
1989 Which? Jan. 13/2This has 'digital' tuning: the station is selected by pressing 'up' and 'down' buttons.
2004 Smithsonian Nov. 37 (advt.)Packed with all the bells and whistles: digital tuning AM, FM, Shortwave reception, and small enough to fit into your coat pocket.
digital TV n. = digital television n.
1959 El Paso (Texas) Herald-Post 9 Nov. 36/7Carrier Corp. says it has developed a *digital TV transmission system that holds promise for use in space technology.
1981 Christian Sci. Monitor (Nexis) 21 Aug. 2Instead of the complex circuits TV sets now use, digital TV will need about 10 'chips'.
1996 New Scientist 10 Aug. 34/2One of the big selling points of digital TV has been that it will allow viewers to enjoy movies in wide-screen format.
2008 Hoosier Times (Bloomington, Indiana) (Herald-Times ed.) 17 Feb. a5/4How do I know if I already have a digital TV (DTV)?
digital versatile disc n. (also digital versatile disk) = DVD n.
1995 Telecomworldwire (Electronic ed.) 3 Jan.,The electronics industry has finally settled on a name for the next generation of compact disks which will hold seven to fourteen times the amount of data of comparable CDs—they will be known as *digital versatile disks.
2000 Ideal Home Nov. 170/1DVD (digital versatile disc) players are one of the most recent technical innovations, and offer an alternative to VCRs.
2006 Daily Mail (Nexis) 22 Nov. 22Some fanatics still claim the decidedly lemon-like LaserDisc is better than Toshiba's DVD (Digital Versatile Disc), which destroyed it overnight in 1996.
digital video disc n. (also digital video disk) a disc allowing the storage and playback of video in digital form; (in later use) spec. a DVD.
1978 Computers in Cardiol. (IEEE) 247/1Complex images require a high band-width data source; one (relatively) low-cost solution is the use of a '*digital' video disk.
1995 Independent on Sunday 30 Apr. (Business section) 4/1Sony claimed the support of Japan Victor Company for its new Digital Video Disc (DVD).
2006 E. J. C. Sobey Field Guide Househ. Technol. ii. 32The digital video disc (DVD) works like a CD, but it can store about seven times as much data.
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