Database

How to spell database

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce database

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does database mean?

1. nounA structured collection of information stored electronically so it can be searched, sorted, and retrieved.

Database in a sentence

• The company keeps every customer record in a single database.

• She queried the database to find all unpaid invoices.

Where does database come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is a modern compound, coined in the era of computing, that joins two much older words. The first part, 'data', is the Latin plural of datum, meaning 'a thing given', from the verb dare 'to give'; in scholarly Latin it referred to facts taken as given for the sake of an argument or calculation. The second part, 'base', traces back through Old French to the Latin basis and ultimately the Greek basis, meaning a 'pedestal' or 'footing', literally the act of stepping or standing. By the 1960s computer scientists were combining the two to name an organised collection of information held on a footing or foundation that programs could draw on. The word spread quickly into ordinary office vocabulary, and because each half is a familiar everyday English word, the spelling rarely causes trouble.

How the word is built

• data (Latin datum: a thing given)
• base (foundation, from Greek basis: a stepping or footing)