First Use Of The Word “Computer”

English author Richard Braithwaite in his 1613 book, The Yong Mans Gleanings, is reputed to have used the first instance of the word “computer” as describing a human who’s good at maths:

WHat art thou (O Man) and from whence hadst thou thy beginning? What matter art thou made of, that thou promisest to thy selfe length of daies: or to thy posterity continuance. I haue read the truest computer of Times, and the best Arithmetician that euer breathed, and he reduceth thy dayes into a short number: The daies of Man are threescore and ten.

where Braithwaite is describing someone who’s good at arithmetic as a “computer.”

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