a furnishing with documents, as to substantiate a claim or the data in a book or article.
3.
Computers. manuals, listings, diagrams, and other hard- or soft-copy written and graphic materials that describe the use, operation, maintenance, or design of software or hardware: The documentation for the driver program is displayed on the screen.
1754, "admonition," from M.L. documentationem "adminition" (see document). Meaning "furnishing with documents or papers" is from 1884, probably from document. Meaning "collection of informational papers" is from 1927, from a sense found in French.
programming The multiple kilograms of macerated, pounded, steamed, bleached, and pressed trees that accompany most modern software or hardware products (see also tree-killer). Hackers seldom read paper documentation and (too) often resist writing it; they prefer theirs to be terse and on-line. A common comment on this predilection is "You can't grep dead trees". See drool-proof paper, verbiage, treeware. [Jargon File] (2003-10-25)