date

date1 (deɪt)
—n
1.	a specified day of the month: today's date is October 27
2.	the particular day or year of an event: the date of the Norman Conquest was 1066
3.	(plural) the years of a person's birth and death or of the beginning and end of an event or period
4.	an inscription on a coin, letter, etc, stating when it was made or written
5.	a.  an appointment for a particular time, esp with a person to whom one is sexually or romantically attached: she has a dinner date
	b.  the person with whom the appointment is made
6.	the present moment; now (esp in the phrases to date, up to date)
—vb
7.	(tr) to mark (a letter, coin, etc) with the day, month, or year
8.	(tr) to assign a date of occurrence or creation to
9.	(intr; foll by from or back to) to have originated (at a specified time): his decline dates from last summer
10.	(tr) to reveal the age of: that dress dates her
11.	to make or become old-fashioned: some good films hardly date at all
12.	informal chiefly (US), (Canadian)
	a.  to be a boyfriend or girlfriend of (someone of the opposite sex)
	b.  to accompany (a member of the opposite sex) on a date
[C14: from Old French, from Latin dare to give, as in the phrase epistula data Romae letter handed over at Rome]
'datable1
—adj
'dateable1
—adj
'dateless1
—adj

date

The Roman convention of closing every article of correspondence by writing "given" and the day and month -- meaning "given to messenger" -- led to data becoming a term for "the time (and place) stated." Dated "old-fashioned" is attested from 1900.

date

"romantic liaison," 1885, gradually evolving from date (1) in its general sense of "appointment;" the verb in this sense is first recorded 1902. Meaning "person one has a date with" is from 1925.

date

"fruit," late 13c., from O.Fr. date, from O.Prov. datil, from L. dactylus, from Gk. daktylos "date," orig. "finger, toe," because of fancied resemblance between oblong fruit of the date palm and human digits. Possibly from a Sem. source (cf. Heb. deqel, Aram. diqla, Arabic daqal "date palm") and assimilated

to the Gk. word for "finger."

date definition

convention, data
A string unique to a time duration of 24 hours between 2 successive midnights defined by the local time zone. The specific representation of a date will depend on which calendar convention is in force; e.g., Gregorian, Islamic, Japanese, Chinese, Hebrew etc. as well as local ordering conventions such as UK: day/month/year, US: month/day/year.
Inputting and outputting dates on computers is greatly complicated by these localisation issues which is why they tend to operate on dates internally in some unified form such as seconds past midnight at the start of the first of January 1970.
Many software and hardware representations of dates allow only two digits for the year, leading to the year 2000 problem.
Unix manual page: date(1), ctime(3).
(1997-07-11)

Date definition

the fruit of a species of palm (q.v.), the Phoenix dactilifera. This was a common tree in Palestine (Joel 1:12; Neh. 8:15). Palm branches were carried by the Jews on festive occasions, and especially at the feast of Tabernacles (Lev. 23:40; Neh. 8:15).

date

In addition to the idiom beginning with date also see bring up to date; double date; make a date; out of date; to date; up to date.