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Wiktionary
descriptor

n. 1 That which describes; a word, phrase, etc. serving as a description. 2 # (context computing English) The name of a category of data in an information storage and retrieval system. 3 # (context information science English) A word that describes the subject of an article or book.

WordNet
descriptor
  1. n. the phonological or orthographic sound or appearance of a word that can be used to describe or identify something; "the inflected forms of a word can be represented by a stem and a list of inflections to be attached" [syn: form, word form, signifier]

  2. a piece of stored information that is used to identify an item in an information storage and retrieval system

Wikipedia
Descriptor

Descriptor may refer to:

  • Data descriptor, a software or hardware structure describing data
  • File descriptor, an abstract key for accessing a file
  • Molecular descriptor, which helps characterize a chemical compound
  • Visual descriptors, a representation of visual features in image or video
  • Security descriptor, a Windows data structure containing security information
  • Segment descriptor, used for memory addressing in x86 computer architectures
  • Short Payment Descriptor, a compact data format for an easy exchange of a payment information using modern electronic channels
  • Index term, also known as a "descriptor" in information retrieval
  • Epithet, a descriptive term (word or phrase), accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage
  • An identifier

Usage examples of "descriptor".

They were mathematicians and theoretical physicists, all specialists in the Bell Continuum, in descriptor theory.

Every space-time descriptor is relative to the descriptors of the observer.

We found that when we manipulated the tweaker, we were actually choosing a descriptor, pulling it from the cloud, and changing it directly.

The accident was stumbling upon the unique identity descriptor that keeps a particle separate from all others.

I think it was exploring the possibility of an alternate descriptor system.

This category seems to co-respond directly with every other descriptor on the largest scale.

We seemed to hang over the Solar System, the inner planets bright points marked by armillaries of coordinates, references for descriptor bases, expansions of arrays for major effects on Mars.

Cam hesitated, searching for a descriptor, but the ones that came to mind--dark, edgy, unsettling--were not helpful.

If we move Phobos, for example, automatic bookkeeping in the Bell Continuum would adjust descriptors for all particles moving within the galaxy, deducting a tiny amount of their total momentum, angular momentum, and kinetic energy.

That means storing some results in the unused descriptors within the tweaker.

He has to be more congruent with the QL to keep those extra descriptors in tune with the overall goal.

Unusual and rare were among the more polite descriptors for those such as himself whose paranormal abilities did not fit into the normal range, Rafe reflected.

Unusual and rare were among the more polite descriptors for those such as himself whose paranormal abilities did not fit into the normal range, Rafe reflected.

Descartes may have meant his metaphor to be precise, as structurally accurate a descriptor of the brain and its processes as Harvey's of the heart as a pump, but I suggest we can take it as no more and no less than poetic, a way of thinking about a complex human phenomenon which places it not sui generis but as merely one amongst other types of matter in motion.

Stephen and I made up a working hypothesis on the relative position tweaks, worked out the momentum and energy descriptor co-responses and scaling, specified final position and state, stimulated the tweaker to access descriptors for every particle in Phobos, considered as a complete system .