Definitions

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

  • noun A large powerful computer, often serving many connected terminals and usually used by large complex organizations.

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

  • noun (Computers) A large digital computer serving 100-400 users and occupying a special air-conditioned room. At any given point in development of computer technology, the mainframe will be faster, have large main memeory, and be more capable than a minicomputer, which will in turn be faster and more capable than a personal computer. The typical personal computer in 1999 is faster than a mainframe was in 1970.
  • noun The board holding the CPU and the memory forming the central part of a computer to which the peripherals are attached.

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

  • noun computer hardware A large, powerful computer able to manage very many simultaneous tasks and communicate with very many connected terminals; used by large, complex organizations (such as banks and supermarkets) where continuously sustained operation is vital

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

  • noun a large digital computer serving 100-400 users and occupying a special air-conditioned room
  • noun (computer science) the part of a computer (a microprocessor chip) that does most of the data processing

Etymologies

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