application
(æplɪˈkeɪʃən)
Also 5–7 apply-.
[a. Fr. application, -acion (14th c.), ad. L. applicātiōn-em, n. of action f. applicāre to apply.]
The action of applying; the thing applied. Cf. the senses of apply.
1. a. The action of putting a thing to another, of bringing into material or effective contact.
| 1632 Sanderson 12 Serm. 278 The fit applycation of the one to the other. 1683 Ray Corr. (1848) 131 By the application of a lighted candle. 1854 Scoffern in Orr's Circ. Sc. Chem. 333 The application of..heat to the bulb. 1879 Thomson & Tait Nat. Phil. I. i. §218 The place of application of a force. |
b. esp. in Geom. (Cf. apply 1 b.)
| 1727–51 Chambers Cycl., Application also signifies the fitting or applying of one quantity to another, whose areas, but not figures, are the same. |
2. The putting on or administration of a medicament; the remedial means so applied.
| 1601 Shakes. All's Well i. ii. 74 The rest haue worne me out With seuerall applications. 1664 Butler Hud. ii. iii. 287 Application Of Medicines to th' Imagination. 1727–51 Chambers Cycl., The application of a vesicatory to the neck. 1804 Abernethy Surg. Observ. 131, I began again to try some medicated applications. 1881 Girls' Own P. 4 June 571 Rheumatic pains..cured by the application..of spirits of camphor. |
3. The bringing of any thing to bear practically upon or affect another. spec. in Theol. in reference to ‘the redemption purchased by Christ.’
| 1647 Assembly's Shorter Catech. 2 The effectual application of it to us by his Holy Spirit. 1656 Bramhall Replic. ii. 99 The holy Eucharist is..an application of the all-sufficient propitiatory Sacrifice of the Crosse. 1751 Chambers Cycl. s.v., It is by this application of the merits of Christ, that we are to be justified. 1859 Mill Lbty. ii. 53 A sufficient application of legal penalties. |
4. a. The putting of any thing to a use or purpose; employment, specific use.
| 1538 Starkey England 8 Wythout applycatyon of hyt to any use or profyt of other. 1737 Waterland Eucharist 124 They are..no more common Bread and Wine (at least not during this their sacred Application). 1794 Sullivan View Nat. II. 87 The application which is made of the loadstone to navigation. 1833 H. Martineau Brooke F. v. 68 The application of labour and capital. |
b. The employment of a word to express an idea.
| 1788 Reid Act. Powers i. ii. 517 Instances of the application of active verbs to things which we now believe not to be active. |
5. a. The bringing of a law or theory, or of a general or figurative statement, to bear upon a particular case, or upon matters of practice generally; the practical lesson or ‘moral’ of a fable.
| 1493 Petronylla (Pynson) 129 Make of this mater an applicacion. 1605 B. Jonson Volpone Ded., Application is now growne a trade with many; and there are that professe to haue a key for the decyphering of euery thing. 1651 Hobbes Leviath. ii. xxvi. 143 The application of the Law to the present case. 1736 Butler Anal. ii. vii. 349 A fable or a parable, related without any application or moral. 1769 Lett. Junius i. 10 The facts..are too notorious to require an application. 1853 Robertson Serm. Ser. iii. xvi. 190 Christian applications which flow out of this exposition. 1882 A. Macfarlane Consanguin. 2, I wish to present the method, and some applications. |
b. The quality or capacity of being thus practically used; relevancy, valid reference.
| 1842 H. Rogers Introd. Burke's Wks. 85 Matter which..is of universal application. 1854 Faraday Exp. Res. lv. 473 It has not that generality of application which can make it of any value. Mod. This has no application to present circumstances. |
6. a. The action of applying one's self closely to a task; assiduous effort, attention, diligence.
| 1605 Bacon Adv. Learn. ii. xx. §12 The tenderness and want of application in some of the most ancient philosophers. 1693 Mem. Count Teckely iii. 84 They had lately block'd up the Place with more Application than ever. 1717 Pope Let. to Blount Wks. 1737 VI. 58, I am obliged..to give up my whole application to Homer. 1779 J. Moore View Soc. II. 153 Some application to other studies. 1823 Lamb Elia ii. xxiii, Application for ever so short a time kills me. |
b. ellipt. The object of assiduous attention.
| 1734 tr. Rollin's Anc. Hist. IV. ix. 182 He made it his sole application to gain their affections. |
† 7. Self-adaptation, compliance, deference, obsequiousness. Obs. rare.
| 1605 Bacon Adv. Learn. i. iii. §10 Not that I can tax or condemn the..application of learned men to men in fortune. Ibid., The like applications and stooping to points of necessity. |
8. Astr. The action of approaching. ? Obs.
| 1594 J. Davis Seamans Secr. (1607) 6 The quantitie of the Moone's separation and application to and from the Sunne. 1647 Lilly Chr. Astrol. xix. 108 Application is when two Planets are drawing neere together. 1819 J. Wilson Dict. Astrol. 10 Application is stronger than Separation, either for good or evil. |
9. The action of making an appeal (obs.), request, or petition to a person; the appeal or request so made.
| 1647 Sir C. Cotterell Davila's Hist. Fr. (1678) 8 With pride..slighting the applications of strangers. 1680 Burnet Rochester (1692) 50 Frequent applications to God in prayer. a 1718 Penn Life Wks. 1726 I. 74, I have not chosen this Way of Application [by Letter]. 1808 Wellington in Gurwood Disp. IV. 63 In answer to various applications which have been made to me. 1883 Law Rep., Queen's B. 592 An application was made on behalf of the prosecutor for a remand. |
10. A kind of needlework; appliqué.
| 1861 Sala Tw. round Clock 191 Cobweb collars..worked in Guipure, or crochet, or application. |
11. a. Comb.: application money, the sum of money paid when applying for the allotment of shares; application(s) program(me), (a) a space exploration programme with a particular application in view; (b) Computing, a program designed to carry out tasks or solve problems which are specific to a given use; cf. system(s) program s.v. system III. 11 d; also application(s) programmer.
| 1900 Westm. Gaz. 12 Mar. 9/1 The lists may be closed earlier than Thursday..to avoid the unnecessary locking up of *application money. 1907 Ibid. 9 Mar. 15/1 A special form of application is provided, under which the application money will have to be paid as in the case of new subscriptions. |
| 1965 Aviation Week & Space Technol. 11 Oct. 69/1 Final review of proposed experiments for National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Apollo *Applications program is under way. 1966 Electronics 14 Nov. 73 The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, pushing ahead to get the Apollo Applications Program moving, will ask Congress for funds for initial hardware. 1969 D. Lefkovitz File Structures for On-Line Syst. i. 19 Some of these parts provide control information for routing the query, calling applications programs, and designating output terminals. 1970 O. Dopping Computers & Data Processing xix. 305 The user's normal programmers are sometimes called problem programmers or application programmers. 1973 [see system(s) program s.v. system III. 11 d]. 1980 C. S. French Computer Sci. xxx. 252 In many cases the user produces his own applications programs called user programs. |
b. General attrib. and Comb. uses (sing. and pl.), esp. in Computing.
| 1965, etc. [see applications program, sense 11 a above]. 1967 Technology Week 20 Feb. 16/3 It would be composed primarily of Apollo Applications flights in Earth orbit and Voyager. 1970 Sci. Amer. May 103 Do you need printouts? Get the quiet printer that operates in an office or lab environment... You also get an extensive..library of applications oriented programmes. 1973 New Scientist 10 May 327 Despite an increasing tendency to think in terms of applications satellites, the European Space Research Organisation is still maintaining a viable scientific programme. 1978 Pract. Computing July–Aug. 56/4 For instance, an operating system is not applications software since it does not produce usable end results. 1983 Austral. Personal Computer Aug. 146/3 The 16-bit version..will offer colour, probably an extra application package..and two 16-bit operating systems. 1985 Personal Computer World Feb. 124/4 Point-of-sale terminals in retail computer stores..make and dispense disks of applications software in about one minute. |
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▸ Computing. A function performed by a computer to meet a specific user requirement; (now usually) a program or piece of software designed to perform such a function (as distinct from software which supports the operating system itself). Cf. application program n. at Compounds 2a.
client, killer application, etc.: see the first element. See also wireless application protocol n. at wireless adj. and n. Additions
| 1959 J. Jeenel Programming for Digital Computers ix. 419 This approach to a file maintenance application implies that a number, or ‘batch’ of transactions is collected and sorted into the order of the master file. 1971 Publishers' Weekly 9 Aug. 24/3 The advantage of random access disc storage is that all required files for a specific application will be on-line to the computer when that application is being processed. 1984 QL User Dec. 24 Data must be transferred to an export file on microdrive and loaded back in after the next application has been run. 1994 MacUser Aug. 105/1 Almost any laser printer, coupled with a word-processing, page-layout, or graphics application, allows you to..print a huge image as a series of single pages. 2006 Independent (Nexis) 30 Nov. (Business section) 54 Some of their infrastructure is still incomplete, device drivers not ready, applications that aren't yet compatible. |
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▸ application program interface n. Computing = application programming interface n.
| 1972 Proc. Internat. Computing Symp. 436 Particular attention has been devoted to..*application program interface (set of fortran V callable routines within the standard real-time exec-8 environment). 2001 DM News (Nexis) 16 Apr. 15 The system communicates with touch points indirectly, by scanning messages or database entries, rather than through an application program interface. |
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▸ application programming n. Computing = applications programming n. at Compounds 2b.
| 1966 Times 20 Sept. 4/3 (advt) Initially staff will be required to engage in the development, maintenance and evaluation of the basic software..but an *application programming service is also to be developed. 1983 Amer. Banker (Nexis) 3 Mar. 2 The third and fourth levels of computer crime..are application programming and auxiliary data storage. 2001 Mod. Power Syst. (Nexis) 31 Mar. 40 Extensive application programming was needed to implement the interface and control functions required for the microturbine application. |
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▸ application programming interface n. Computing the interface between the operating system and an application program; the protocol to be observed by the writer of an application program designed to run under a particular operating system; abbreviated API.
| [1984 Computer Graphics ((Special GKS Issue)) Feb. p. i, This standard defines an application level programming interface to a graphics system.] 1984 Computerworld 22 Oct. 95/5 The enhancement consists of the *Application Programming Interface (API), a file transfer facility that allows applications running on the IBM Personal Computer to exchange data with applications running on the IBM mainframe. 1994 NewMedia Aug. 26/3 A scripting language..supported by a variety of software libraries, tool kits and application programming interfaces. 2005 Financial Times (Nexis) 1 Feb. 17 Publishing the ‘application programming interfaces’ of its search engine—the software links that other developers use to connect their own software—is an important part of Microsoft's strategy. |
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▸ application software n. Computing = applications software n. at Compounds 2b.
| 1966 Syracuse (N.Y.) Herald–American 2 Oct. 64/2 (advt.) Must have creative and analytical ability in use of computer systems and *application software packages. 1993 MacUser Oct. 8/2 The future of application software is not the bulky dinosaurs of today but smaller, more focused products, documented and distributed electronically. 2005 Daily Post (Liverpool) (Nexis) 27 July 15 The need for ‘traceability’ is the reason why food companies are among the keenest users of application software. |
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▸ applications programming n. Computing the design or writing of application software.
| 1967 Communications ACM Dec. 771 The event-driven aspect..has not yet created any appreciable problems in *applications programming. 1999 J. Naughton Brief Hist. Future (2001) xi. 174 By early 1973 he had come up with C—the language which became the lingua franca of applications programming for subsequent decades. 2006 Stoke Sentinel (Nexis) 29 Mar. 29 For the more technical careers, like applications programming, systems programming and software engineering, there are various degree courses in computing and IT. |
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▸ applications software n. Computing software designed to carry out a specific task or meet a specific user requirement; application programs collectively.
| 1968 Times 17 May 29/5 Hoskyns Systems Research Limited carries out research, design, and construction of systems and *applications software. 1978 Pract. Computing July–Aug. 56/4 An operating system is not applications software since it does not produce usable end results. 1985 Which Computer? Dec. 39/4 In fact, in some cases the machine is too fast and will not run certain PC applications software because of it. 2006 Financial Times (Nexis) 21 Mar. 25 Sales of new applications software were stronger than most analysts had expected, signalling a return to underlying growth. |