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Alias

 - 8 dictionary results

a⋅li⋅as

[ey-lee-uhs] noun, plural -as⋅es, adverb
–noun
1. a false name used to conceal one's identity; an assumed name: The police files indicate that “Smith” is an alias for Simpson.
–adverb
2. at another time; in another place; in other circumstances; otherwise. “Simpson alias Smith” means that Simpson in other circumstances has called himself Smith.

Origin:
1525–35; < L aliās (adv.): at another time, otherwise; cf. else


1. nom de guerre; nom de plume, pseudonym.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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a·li·as   (ā'lē-əs, āl'yəs)   
n.  
  1. An assumed name: The swindler worked under various aliases.

  2. Electronics A false signal in telecommunication links from beats between signal frequency and sampling frequency.

adv.  Also known as; otherwise: Johnson, alias Johns.

[Latin aliās, otherwise, at another time, from feminine accusative pl. of alius, other; see al-1 in Indo-European roots.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

alias 
c.1432, "otherwise called," from L. form of alius "at another time, in another way," from alius "(an)other," from PIE *al- "beyond" (cf. Skt. anya "other, different," Avestan anya-, Armenian ail, Gk. allos "another," Goth. aljis "other," O.E. elles "otherwise, else"). The noun meaning "assumed name" is first recorded 1605.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Legal Dictionary

Main Entry: 1alias
Pronunciation: 'A-lE-&s, 'Al-y&s
Function: adverb
Etymology: Latin, otherwise, from alius other
: otherwise called : also known as alias Legs Diamond>

Main Entry: 2alias
Function: noun
: an assumed or additional name

Main Entry: 3alias
Function: adjective
: issued after the original instrument has not produced any action alias tax warrant> alias summons> —compare PLURIES
Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law, © 1996 Merriam-Webster, Inc.
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Computing Dictionary

ALIAS
ALgorIthmic ASsembly language

alias
1. A name, usually short and easy to remember and type, that is translated into another name or string, usually long and difficult to remember or type. Most command interpreters (e.g. Unix's csh) allow the user to define aliases for commands, e.g. "alias l ls -al". These are loaded into memory when the interpreter starts and are expanded without needing to refer to any file.
2. One of several alternative hostnames with the same Internet address. E.g. in the Unix hosts database (/etc/hosts or NIS map) the first field on a line is the Internet address, the next is the official hostname (the "canonical name" or "CNAME"), and any others are aliases.
Hostname aliases often indicate that the host with that alias provides a particular network service such as archie, finger, FTP, or World-Wide Web. The assignment of services to computers can then be changed simply by moving an alias (e.g. www.doc.ic.ac.uk) from one Internet address to another, without the clients needing to be aware of the change.
3. The name used by Apple computer, Inc. for symbolic links when they added them to the System 7 operating system in 1991.
(1997-10-22)
4. Two names (identifiers), usually of local or global variables, that refer to the same resource (memory location) are said to be aliased. Although names introduced in programming languages are typically mapped to different memory locations, aliasing can be introduced by the use of address arithmetic and pointers or language-specific features, like C++ references.
Statically deciding (e.g. via a program analysis executed by a sophisticated compiler) which locations of a program will be aliased at run time is an undecidable problem.
[G. Ramalingam: "The Undecidability of Aliasing", ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems (TOPLAS), Volume 16, Issue 5, September 1994, Pages: 1467 - 1471, ISSN:0164-0925.]
(2004-09-12)

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2007 Denis Howe
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