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
Vidya Plainfield, Forbes.com, 17 June 2025
As part of that effort, Huang recently carried out a similar whirlwind trip to the Middle East, where Nvidia is planning to sell its latest chips as part of big data center buildouts in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
—Arjun Kharpal, CNBC, 11 June 2025
The Administration’s first goal of assembling big data to studying autism has left some worried that if used inappropriately, such data could lead to harm, rather than help, for those with autism.
—Christopher M. Worsham, Time, 9 June 2025
People were talking a lot about data science and big data.
—Steven Strogatz, Quanta Magazine, 15 May 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 28 Jun. 2025.
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