Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To ascertain by computation; reckon.
  • intransitive verb To make an estimate of; evaluate.
  • intransitive verb To make for a deliberate purpose; design.
  • intransitive verb To suppose.
  • intransitive verb To plan, intend, or depend on.
  • intransitive verb To perform a mathematical process; figure.
  • intransitive verb To suppose; guess.
  • intransitive verb To count, depend, or rely on someone or something.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To ascertain by computation; compute; reckon up arithmetically or by items: as, to calculate interest, or the cost of a house.
  • To make an estimate of; compute by weighing related facts or circumstances in the mind: as, to calculate chances or probabilities.
  • To fit or prepare by the adaptation of means to the end; make suitable; plan: generally in the perfect participle, and frequently (though improperly) in the sense of fitted, without any thought of intentional adaptation.
  • To purpose; intend; design: as, he calculates to do it; he calculates to go.
  • To think; guess.
  • To make a computation; arrive at a conclusion after weighing all the circumstances; form an estimate; reckon: as, we calculate better for ourselves than for others; to calculate on (that is, with expectation of) fine weather.
  • To speculate about future events; predict.
  • To suppose or believe, after deliberation; think; ‘guess’; ‘reckon’: as, you are wrong there, I calculate.
  • noun Calculation.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To make a calculation; to forecast consequences; to estimate; to compute.
  • intransitive verb To ascertain or determine by mathematical processes, usually by the ordinary rules of arithmetic; to reckon up; to estimate; to compute.
  • intransitive verb To ascertain or predict by mathematical or astrological computations the time, circumstances, or other conditions of; to forecast or compute the character or consequences of.
  • intransitive verb To adjust for purpose; to adapt by forethought or calculation; to fit or prepare by the adaptation of means to an end.
  • intransitive verb Local, U. S. To plan; to expect; to think.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive, mathematics To determine the value of something or the solution to something by a mathematical process.
  • verb intransitive, mathematics To determine values or solutions by a mathematical process.
  • verb intransitive To plan something, especially something morally wrong.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb judge to be probable
  • verb keep an account of
  • verb predict in advance
  • verb specifically design a product, event, or activity for a certain public
  • verb make a mathematical calculation or computation
  • verb have faith or confidence in

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Late Latin calculāre, calculāt-, from Latin calculus, small stone used in reckoning, diminutive of calx, calc-, small stone for gaming; see calx.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin calculātus, perfect passive participle of calculō ("I reckon, originally by means of pebbles"), from calculus ("a pebble").

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Examples

  • I can get around this by defining a body class and calling it, but would like to understand why it is behaving the way it is. getDB (); if (($calculate-validateUser ($userName, $password) = = "FALSE") or ($calculate - abduraooft

    CodingForums.com v3rlon 2010

  • From below: what families spend a lot more on, the authors calculate, is a house in a safe neighborhood with a good school — about 70 percent more a year, discounted for inflation, for the typical family of four.

    Two-Handed on Vouchers, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009

  • Jeff Madrick discusses the work of Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi on the plight of middle-class two-income families with children. what families spend a lot more on, the authors calculate, is a house in a safe neighborhood with a good school — about 70 percent more a year, discounted for inflation, for the typical family of four.

    Imputed Income, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009

  • Did McCain calculate the amount of lives and money involve?

    McCain launches '2013' web ad 2008

  • We do not keep house at a joint expence; but they pay me for what I calculate is the extra expence, and that is not much.

    New Letters from Charles Brown to Joseph Severn 2007

  • All that the numerous “heritability” studies calculate is the relative variance associated with “heredity” and “environment” given a pre-existing set of both.

    How Many Generations of Imbeciles Is Enough? 2006

  • Jeff Madrick discusses the work of Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi on the plight of middle-class two-income families with children. what families spend a lot more on, the authors calculate, is a house in a safe neighborhood with a ...

    EconLog: September 2003 Archives 2003

  • For different agonists acting on the same receptor, one could calculate from the KA values the fractional occupation by each to obtain the same standard response before receptor inactivation, and thus obtain relative efficacies.

    Robert F. Furchgott - Autobiography 1999

  • Then, by means of a sudden expansion of the air, which was saturated with steam, he effected a condensation of the steam on the electrically charged small particles, the size of which he could calculate from the velocity with which they sank.

    Nobel Prize in Physics 1906 - Presentation Speech 1967

  • Using the heat theorem discovered by you it has now become possible on the one hand to calculate from the heat evolution during chemical reactions and the specific heats, the chemical affinity and the maximum possible output of energy during chemical reactions, and on the other hand to calculate the equilibrium in reactions not yet studied.

    Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1920 - Presentation Speech 1966

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