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Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
multitasking

also multi-tasking, 1966, originally in computing, from multi- + tasking (see task). Of humans, by 1998. Related: Multitask (v.). As an adjective, multi-task is recorded from 1954 in a non-computer mechanical context.

Wiktionary
multitasking

n. 1 (context computing English) The simultaneous execution of multiple tasks (programs) under the control of an interrupt-driven operating system. 2 (context buzzword figuratively English) The practice or capability of handling more than one task at the same time. vb. (present participle of multitask English)

Wikipedia
Multitasking (disambiguation)

Multitasking or computer multitasking, is the concurrent performance of two or more tasks by a computer's central processing unit.

Multitasking may also refer to:

  • Human multitasking, the apparent performance by an individual of handling more than one task at the same time
    • Media multitasking, using TV, the Web, radio, telephone, print, or any other media in conjunction with another

Usage examples of "multitasking".

We promised to help you get that central multitasking unit for Peckhum.

He had promised Peckhum a new central multitasking unit, knowing how important it was to the mirror station.

An employee was currently demonstrating and extolling the virtues of some sort of complex-looking, multitasking imaging unit to a customer.

Remote controls: their very existence, in the hands of a quick-reflexed, multitasking, channel-flipping, fast-forwarding citizenry, has caused an acceleration in the pace of films and television commercials.

Programmers sometimes assume a lockstep timing that does not exist in a free-wheeling, multitasking world.

Pauses manage to reinsert themselves into the flow of our faster, multitasking mental lives.

Unless, that is, it has more than one processor running, in which case multitasking can be truly parallel processing.

For some people television has been bumped off its pedestal by the cool, fast, fluid, indigenously multitasking activity of browsing the Internet.

No talk without simultaneous action, because we viewers, after all, enjoy multitasking, and we can absorb the words and movement all at once.

In an age of multitasking, we can conveniently experience the pleasures of nature while we eat or shop in the mall.

Being a sports agent was - to use computer terminology - a multitasking environment with the capability of performing a variety of services with but a click of a button.