Citations:abacus

English citations of abacus

1. A device used for performing arithmetical calculations; (rare) a table on which loose counters are placed, or (more commonly) an instrument with balls sliding on wires, or counters in grooves, with one row representing units, the next tens, etc. [from late 17th c.]
   • 1888, Walter W[illiam] Rouse Ball, “The Rise of Learning in Western Europe. Circ. 600–1200”, in A Short Account of the History of Mathematics, London, New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, section 1 (Education in the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Centuries):

     We may there find some slight attempts at a study of literature, but mathematics was never read: to learn the use of the abacus, to keep accounts, and to know the rule by which the date of Easter could be determined was all the science that the most studious aimed at.

   • 2007, Valerie Anand, The House of Lanyon (The Exmoor Saga), Richmond, London: Mira, published 2008, →ISBN, page 55:

     She's handy with a loom and an abacus, as well.