# calculus
## English
### Etymology

* Borrowed from Latin calculus (“a pebble or stone used as reckoning counters in abacus”), diminutive of calx (“limestone”) + -ulus.
* Mathematical topic is from differential calculus.

### Pronunciation

* (UK) IPA: /ˈkæl.kjʊ.ləs/
* (General American) IPA: /ˈkæl.kjə.ləs/
* Audio (US):(file)
* Hyphenation: cal‧cu‧lus

### Noun

calculus (countable and uncountable, plural calculi or calculuses)
* (dated, countable) Calculation; computation.
    Synonyms: ciphering, reckoning; see also Thesaurus:calculation
* (countable, mathematics) Any formal system in which symbolic expressions are manipulated according to fixed rules.
    lambda calculus
    predicate calculus
* (uncountable, often definite, the calculus) Differential calculus and integral calculus considered as a single subject.
    Synonym: infinitesimal calculus
    Near-synonyms: analysis, mathematical analysis
* (countable, medicine) A stony concretion that forms in a bodily organ.
    Synonym: stone
    Hyponyms: kidney stone, nephrolith, gallstone, cholelith, sialolith, urolith
** 2015, Jaime Samour, Avian Medicine, page 297:Commonly indicated for treatment of sour crop (Fig. 11-11, A), an ingluviotomy is done to retrieve crop calculi, ingluvioliths, or foreign bodies (which are not accessible per os) or to retrieve proventricular or ventricular foreign bodies (using micromagnets [glued in place within plastic tubes], lavage, or endoscopy) and for the placement of an ingluviotomy or proventriculotomy tube or the collection of crop wall biopsies.
* (uncountable, dentistry) Deposits of calcium phosphate salts on teeth.
    Synonyms: dental calculus, tartar
* (countable) A decision-making method, especially one appropriate for a specialised realm.
** 2008 December 16, “Cameron calls for bankers’ ‘day of reckoning’”, in Financial Times:The Tory leader refused to state how many financiers he thought should end up in jail, saying: “There is not some simple calculus."

#### Derived terms

* absolute differential calculus
* all students take calculus
* calculus of moving surfaces
* calculus of sums and differences
* calculus of variations
* dental calculus
* differential calculus
* felicific calculus
* finite-difference calculus
* fractional calculus
* hedonic calculus
* hedonistic calculus
* implicational propositional calculus
* infinitesimal calculus
* integral calculus
* jackstone calculus
* join calculus
* Kirby calculus
* lambda calculus
* logical calculus
* modular calculus
* multivariable calculus
* noncalculus
* operational calculus
* pi-calculus
* precalculus
* predicate calculus
* propositional calculus
* renal calculus
* Ricci calculus
* Schubert calculus
* sentential calculus
* sequent calculus
* stochastic calculus
* tensor calculus
* tuple calculus
* umbral calculus
* utility calculus
* variational calculus
* vector calculus

#### Related terms

* calcify
* calcium
* calculate

#### Translations
### See also

* algebra
* analysis
* concretion

### References

* ↑ Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “calculus”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
* ↑ https://simplymaths.wordpress.com/2012/06/20/what-does-it-mean-calculus/
* “calculus”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

## Latin
### Etymology

From calx, calcis (“limestone, game counter”) +‎ -ulus (diminutive suffix).

### Pronunciation

* (Classical Latin) IPA: /ˈkal.ku.lus/, [ˈkäɫ̪kʊɫ̪ʊs̠]
* (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA: /ˈkal.ku.lus/, [ˈkälkulus]

### Noun

calculus m (genitive calculī); second declension
* diminutive of calx
* pebble, stone
* reckoning, calculating, calculation
* a piece in the latrunculi game

#### Declension

Second-declension noun.

#### Derived terms

* calculārius
* calculensis
* calculō
* calculōsus

#### Descendants

* → Catalan: càlcul
* → English: calculus
* → French: calcul
** → German: Kalkül
*** → Czech: kalkul
** → Romanian: calcul
** → Swedish: kalkyl
* → Gallurese: calculu
* → Georgian: კალკულუსი (ḳalḳulusi)
* → Hungarian: kalkulus
* → Irish: calcalas
* → Italian: calcolo
* → Portuguese: cálculo
* → Sardinian: calculu, càrculu
* → Sassarese: càlcuru
* → Spanish: cálculo
* → Welsh: calcwlws
* → Yiddish: קאַלקולוס (kalkulus)

### References

* “calculus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
* “calculus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
* "calculus", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
* calculus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
* Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co. to go through accounts, make a valuation of a thing: ad calculos vocare aliquid (Amic. 16. 58)