round-off, a. and n.
[f. round v.1 + off adv.]
A. adj. round-off file: (see quot.).
| 1846 Holtzapffel Turning II. 826 Nicking and piercing files..are called round-off files, and are used for rounding or pointing the teeth of wheels. 1875 Knight Dict. Mech. |
B. n.
1. = rounding vbl. n.1 1 c. Freq. attrib. as round-off error, the error introduced thereby.
| 1946 Goldstine & von Neumann in J. von Neumann Coll. Wks. (1963) V. 17 A very complicated calculation in which the accumulation and amplification of the round-off errors threatens to prevent the obtaining of results of the desired precision. 1947 Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. LIII. 1026 The transition from the true operations to their pseudo-operations is effected by any one of the familiar methods of round off. 1962 Times Lit. Suppl. 20 Apr. 268/1 Whenever approximations due to round-offs or other reasons are indicated, the degree of approximation is perfectly well determined. 1973 C. W. Gear Introd. Computer Sci. vi. 258 Sometimes a bad choice of method will make the solution very sensitive to round-off or truncation errors. |
2. The act of rounding off or completing an operation appropriately.
| 1964 Trampolining (‘Know the Game’ Ser.) 40/1 It is similar in action to the round-off in ground work tumbling. |