hardware

See also: Hardware

English

Etymology

hard +‎ ware; attested since the mid-15th century.

Pronunciation

Noun

hardware (uncountable)

  1. Fixtures, equipment, tools and devices used for general-purpose construction and repair of a structure or object. Also such equipment as sold as stock by a store of the same name, e.g. hardware store.
    He needed a hammer, nails, screws, nuts, bolts and other assorted hardware, so he went to the hardware store.
  2. (informal) Equipment.
    military hardware
    • 2003 June 6, “Mission to Mars”, in CBS_Rather:
      BOWEN: The monster trucks of Mars rovers, joke scientists, equipped with an array of sophisticated hardware to look for signs of water and answer scientists questions.
    • 2009 May, Lee S. Langston, “plowing new ground.”, in Mechanical Engineering, volume 131, number 5, page 40:
      It is one thing to see an intercooler as a simple entry in a textbook, but to witness the actual hardware as it crawled down the road was awe-inspiring.
    • 2011 January, “Swedish Sportster”, in Popular Mechanics, volume 188, number 1, page 27:
      Smaller, turbocharged engines are one way to increase engine efficiency by 8 to 10 percent, but the extra hardware is expensive.
  3. (computing) The part of a computer that is fixed and cannot be altered without replacement or physical modification; motherboard, expansion cards, etc. Compare software.
    • 1952, "Binary Arithmetic", R.L. Michaelson, in The Incorporated Statistician, vol. 3, no. 1 (Feb. 1952), pp 35-40.
      Hardware is the generally accepted colloquism for anything inside a computer other than an engineer.
  4. (technology) Electronic equipment.
  5. Metal implements.
  6. (slang) A firearm.

Descendants

Translations
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked

Further reading

French

Etymology

From English

Pronunciation
  • (aspirated h) IPA(key): /aʁ.dwɛʁ/

Noun

hardware m (uncountable)

  1. (computing) hardware

Synonyms

Further reading

Norman

Etymology

Borrowed from English hardware.

Noun

hardware m (uncountable)

  1. (Jersey, computing) hardware

Portuguese

Noun

hardware m (plural hardwares)

  1. (computing) hardware (parts of a computer that is fixed and cannot be altered without replacement or physical modification)

Spanish

Etymology

Borrowed from English hardware

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /ˈxarweɾ/
  • IPA(key): /ˈxarɡeɾ/, [ˈxarɣeɾ]

Noun

hardware m (plural hardwares)

  1. (computing) hardware
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