big data
noun
Did you know?
Big data is a new addition to our language, but exactly how new is not an easy matter to determine. A 1980 paper by Charles Tilly provides an early documented use of big data, but Tilly wasn't using the word in the exact same way we use it today; rather, he used the phrase "big-data people" to refer to historians engaged in data-rich fields such as cliometrics. Today, big data can refer to large data sets or to systems and solutions developed to manage such large accumulations of data, as well as for the branch of computing devoted to this development. Francis X. Diebold, a University of Pennsylvania economist, who has written a paper exploring the origin of big data as a term, a phenomenon, and a field of study, believes the term "probably originated in lunch-table conversations at Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) in the mid 1990s…."
Examples of big data in a Sentence
Mario Cortegana, New York Times, 29 June 2025
Modern technician roles are vital to keeping factory operations running, especially in the age of big data and the internet of things.
—Kristen Waggoner, MSNBC Newsweek, 24 June 2025
By thinking in big data sets, leaders can use AI to understand how teams behave in collaborative situations.
—Jeff Chow, Forbes.com, 18 June 2025
Taking The Humanity Out Of The Process Integrating AI into business processes is about more than big data and machine learning algorithms.
—Vidya Plainfield, Forbes.com, 17 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for big data
Cite this Entry
“Big data.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/big%20data. Accessed 3 Jul. 2025.
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