meaning - What's a tuple in normal English?


A tuple in mathematics is a sequence of numbers (n1, n2, n3).


In databases, a tuple is a single row of data from a table.


What is a tuple in normal everyday English, or where does the word come from? Is there a concrete real-life object from which this word is derived? WordNet does not have a definition.



Answer



The word derives from the extended series of single, double, triple, quadruple, quintuple,..., where named multiples beyond five are generally words that end in "tuple". The natural (Latin-derived) words peter out pretty quickly, and mathematics needs more terms than a simple bipedal meat unit can easily memorize, so the term "n-tuple" was coined. Computer science took that ball and ran with it, dropping the "n-" altogether.


In other words, "tuple" has no meaning in everyday English.


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