calculator

noun

Etymology: In the sense of a person, from Middle English calkelatour (“a mathematician, an astrologer”), borrowed from Latin calculātor, equivalent to calculate + -or. The other meanings arose in Modern English.

1. A mechanical or electronic device that performs mathematical calculations; (now usually) an electronic one specifically.

   “electronic calculator;   pocket calculator”

   “The calculator on a bookkeeper's desk in the 1950s was an adding machine with mechanical guts.”

2. A person who performs mathematical calculation.

   “During the war, his grandmother had worked at the Bletchley Park decoding station as a calculator.”

   “First, many real-world investors bear little resemblance to the cool calculators of efficient-market theory: they're all too subject to herd behavior, to bouts of irrational exuberance and unwarranted panic.”

3. A person who calculates (in the sense of scheming).

   “Near-synonyms: schemer, plotter; manipulator”

   “He revealed himself to be a cold-blooded calculator out to sabotage his colleagues.”

4. A set of mathematical tables.