"does not compute" meaning in English

See does not compute in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Phrase

Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-does not compute.wav
Etymology: A phrase commonly uttered by robots in science-fiction stories. The first recorded source is the television show My Living Doll from 1964. Head templates: {{head|en|phrase}} does not compute
  1. (humorous) That does not make sense. Wikipedia link: does not compute Tags: humorous Related terms: error, ignore all previous instructions, logic bomb, 🤯
    Sense id: en-does_not_compute-en-phrase-XX5WUayG Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries
{
  "etymology_text": "A phrase commonly uttered by robots in science-fiction stories. The first recorded source is the television show My Living Doll from 1964.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "does not compute",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "That does not make sense."
      ],
      "id": "en-does_not_compute-en-phrase-XX5WUayG",
      "links": [
        [
          "humorous",
          "humorous"
        ],
        [
          "make sense",
          "make sense"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(humorous) That does not make sense."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "error"
        },
        {
          "word": "ignore all previous instructions"
        },
        {
          "word": "logic bomb"
        },
        {
          "word": "🤯"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "humorous"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "does not compute"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-does not compute.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/2/2c/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-does_not_compute.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-does_not_compute.wav.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/2/2c/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-does_not_compute.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-does_not_compute.wav.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "does not compute"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "A phrase commonly uttered by robots in science-fiction stories. The first recorded source is the television show My Living Doll from 1964.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "does not compute",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "error"
    },
    {
      "word": "ignore all previous instructions"
    },
    {
      "word": "logic bomb"
    },
    {
      "word": "🤯"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English humorous terms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English phrases",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "That does not make sense."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "humorous",
          "humorous"
        ],
        [
          "make sense",
          "make sense"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(humorous) That does not make sense."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "humorous"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "does not compute"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-does not compute.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/2/2c/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-does_not_compute.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-does_not_compute.wav.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/2/2c/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-does_not_compute.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-does_not_compute.wav.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "does not compute"
}

Download raw JSONL data for does not compute meaning in English (1.3kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-04-08 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-04-03 using wiktextract (51d164f and fb63907). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.