Word of the Day

: June 22, 2012

wetware

noun WET-wair

What It Means

: the human brain or a human being considered especially with respect to human logical and computational capabilities

wetware in Context

With the right wetware at the helm, the company should be able to turn a sizeable profit.

"Over the weekend, an impressive crossword-solving computer program, called Dr. Fill, which I wrote about earlier, matched its digital wits against the wetware of 600 of the nation's best human solvers at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in Brooklyn." - From an article by Steve Lohr in The New York Times, March 19, 2012

Did You Know?

When the computer terms "software" and "hardware" sprang to life in the mid-20th century, a surge of visions and inventions using the new technology immediately followed … along with a revival of the combining form "ware." An early coinage was "wetware," which began circuiting techie circles in the 1970s as a name for the software installed by Mother Nature (a.k.a. the brain). Other "ware" names for people and their noggins have made a blip in our language - for example, "meatware" and "liveware" - but none have become firmly established in the general lexicon like "wetware."