Node

How to spell node

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce node

What does node mean?

1. nounA point at which lines, paths, or parts meet, branch, or connect.
2. nounA connected device or point in a computer network or data structure.
3. nounA small mass or swelling in the body, or the point on a plant stem where a leaf or branch grows.

Node in a sentence

• The railway map shows a major node where three lines converge.

• Each node on the network has its own unique address.

• The doctor checked whether a lymph node in his neck was swollen.

• Each node in the diagram represents a stage in the process.

• The engineer added a new node to the cluster to handle extra traffic.

• New shoots emerge from each node along the stem.

Where does node come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes directly from the Latin nodus, which literally meant 'a knot', the kind you tie in a rope, and by extension any hard lump, swelling, or tangle. Romans used nodus both for literal knots and figuratively for a knotty problem or a difficulty that needed untying, a sense that still echoes in the English phrase 'the crux of the matter'. English adopted node in the early 1400s, at first largely in medical and botanical writing for a knob, lump, or swelling on the body or on a plant stem. From the idea of a knot where things tie together, the meaning broadened to any point where lines, branches, or paths meet or cross, which is how astronomers, mathematicians, and later computer scientists came to use it. The same Latin nodus also gave us 'noose' (through Old French) and the adjective 'nodular', so the original sense of a tied knot is never far away from the modern spelling.

How the word is built

• node (from Latin nodus: a knot or knotty swelling)