Log in or Sign up
  1. wetware love

Definitions

Wiktionary

  1. n. slang A human brain or mind as a computing element. Coined as a parallel to hardware and software. Common in the cyberspace genre of science fiction.
  2. n. The underlying generative code for an organism, as found in the genetic material, in the biochemistry of the cells, or in the architecture of the body’s tissues.

Etymologies

  1. wet +‎ -ware (Wiktionary)

Examples

  • “We prefer to recruit post-military service personnel, as you are as a group far easier to augment with training, and upgrading wetware is much more expedient than installing it and waiting for the development of adequate proficiency.”

    365 tomorrows » 2007 » February : A New Free Flash Fiction SciFi Story Every Day

  • “It's captivating enough for the casual computer user, and a must-read for anyone who cares about tech history Reboot your brain: Mucking about in the wetware is a great way to spend those long gray winter months.”

    Wired: Slip a Geek Book Under the Tree

  • “The greatest resource, willing and able "wetware", will be augmented by API's provided by YouTube, Bit. ly, SeeClickFix and others.”

    The Huffington Post: Ben Berkowitz: The Great Urban Hack -- Not so Lazy Sunday

  • “On a more scientific note, I'm guessing the burn marks are due to the wires getting smoking hot conducting all that current that otherwise would have to travel through the "wetware".”

    Boing Boing

  • “The human brain's "wetware", the physical bits, turns out to be a lot less complex than we'd ever imagined, just as the arrangements and patterns within it are even more complex.”

    Archive 2005-04-01

  • “And yet, the whole idea disturbs me, with its connotations of managing nice clean packages of knowledge, away from contamination by nasty, troublesome "wetware" artefacts.”

    Independent Information Technology and business analysis from IT-Director.com

  • “According to the computationalist, the mind is quite literally a kind of computer program being run on the "wetware" of the brain.”

    Ethical Technology

  • “These systems can exist as constructs of metal-oxide semiconductors and silicon, as in a digital computer, or in the "wetware" of organic compounds, proteins and nucleic acids that make up biological organisms.”

    BioMed Central - Latest articles

  • “Using a computer analogy, the presence of the 'wetware' (i.e., the neural substrates) is often a reliable predictor that the program (i.e., pain) can and will be executed.”

    Omaha World-Herald > Frontpage

  • “In fact, Swanwick is credited by many as being one of the first creators of wetware, the idea of ‘painting on’ software to do just that.”

    Two of the Most Entertaining SF Novels from the 1980s

Show 10 more examples...

Log in or sign up to add your own related words.

same context (17)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. newassociate
  2. isolinear
  3. costco
  1. persons'
  2. 1-wire
  3. pape
  1. class-meeting
  2. unpaid-for
  3. multicore
  1. self-selected
  2. holovid
  3. couldenter
  1. guacolate
  2. photodetector
  3. paid-up
  1. washington-based
  2. lead-based

tags (1)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. neologism

Log in or sign up to add your own tag.

Wordmap

(beta)

Word visualization

Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘wetware’.

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • whichbe With products like BrainGate I don't think this term is all that odd. Mind apps, ya know? Dec 9, 2009

  • zaggan yes very much so Dec 8, 2009

  • mjt I don't mind the terms software and hardware, but wetware is a bit of a stretch. Dec 8, 2009

Tweets

Looking for tweets for wetware.

‘wetware’ has been looked up 1832 times, added to 13 lists, commented on 3 times, and has a Scrabble score of 13.