crontab

English

Etymology

Shortening of cron table, where cron is the name of the system program that handles these tasks, from Ancient Greek χρόνος (khrónos, “time”).

Noun

crontab (plural crontabs)

1. (computing, Unix) A table of commands to be executed periodically.
   • 2008, Michael Lucas, Absolute FreeBSD: The Complete Guide to FreeBSD:

     The purpose of /etc/crontab is different from that of individual users' crontabs. With /etc/crontab, root may specify which user will run a particular command.