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
ABC News, 20 May 2026
According to project developers, the system supports workloads ranging from artificial intelligence and big data annotation to 5G infrastructure and domestic large language model development.
—Atharva Gosavi, Interesting Engineering, 19 May 2026
But in recent years the province has come to represent Beijing’s drive to remake its interior, as one of China’s fastest growing provinces by gross domestic product and an emerging hub for big data and green energy.
—Time Contributors, Time, 29 Apr. 2026
Since the 2000s, researchers have added a new set of tools, including ethnographic in-site analysis, image and video codification techniques, phenomenological interviewing, and big data collecting techniques.
—Encyclopedia Britannica, 27 Apr. 2026
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Cite this Entry
“Big data.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/big%20data. Accessed 27 May. 2026.
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