personal computer

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noun

a microcomputer designed for individual use, as by a person in an office or at home or school, for such applications as word processing, data management, financial analysis, or computer games. Abbreviation: PC

Origin:
1975–80

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Link To personal computer

Collins

World English Dictionary

personal computer

—n
	a small inexpensive computer used in word processing, playing computer games, etc

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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American Heritage

Science Dictionary

personal computer

(pûr'sə-nəl) Pronunciation Key
A computer built around a microprocessor for use by an individual. Personal computers have their own operating systems, software, and peripherals, and can generally be linked to networks. Compare mainframe.

The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
Copyright © 2002. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.
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American Heritage

Cultural Dictionary

personal computer (PC)

A computer typically used in the home, office, or school. Also a generic term for a PC Microsoft® operating system.

The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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FOLDOC

Computing Dictionary

personal computer definition

computer
(PC) A general-purpose single-user microcomputer designed to be operated by one person at a time.
This term and the concept has been successfully hijacked by IBM due to the huge market share of the IBM PC, despite its many obvious weaknesses when compared to other equally valid claimants to the term, e.g. the Acorn Archimedes, Amiga, Atari, Macintosh.
(1994-11-02)

Example sentences

Software makers are coming up with new ways to lend mobile handsets some of the

prime functions of a personal computer.

The value of the personal computer was no great mystery.

Arguably, it started with the development of the personal computer more than

two decades ago.

The personal computer has been king of the hill for over a decade.

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Matching Quote

"The child receives data through the sense organs; the child also has some inborn processing capacities—otherwise it would not be able to learn—but in addition, some "information" or "programs" are built-in at birth (for example, the child does not have to learn how to suck, for this is an innate reflex); there is a working memory, in which the child keeps those items of knowledge that are being used at a particular moment; and there is a permanent memory, which is, in Locke's terms, largely a "blank tablet" at birth, but which has a storage capacity that makes a hard disk pale into insignificance. The child gradually builds up a symbolic representation of the world around it, so there must be some inner "language" or medium of representation; even a newborn baby is starting to see and taste and smell and hear and touch, and to remember the more striking of its experiences, so the internal medium by which it represents and stores these impressions cannot be the native language (of which it is still ignorant. Jerry Fodor [in The Language of Thought] has discussed this inbuilt "language of thought," which is similar conceptually to the "machine language" that is built into the personal computer and about which most users remain completely ignorant)."

-John Cleverley