See magic number in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for magic number meaning in English (7.5kB)
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"The number of neutrons or protons in nuclei which are required to fill the major quantum shells, and thus produce exceptionally stable nuclei: 2, 8, 20, 28, 50, 82 and 126."
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"(nuclear physics) The number of neutrons or protons in nuclei which are required to fill the major quantum shells, and thus produce exceptionally stable nuclei: 2, 8, 20, 28, 50, 82 and 126."
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"A metric used to determine a team's required performance to make the playoffs.",
"The sum of one and the wins by one team and losses by an opponent necessary for the team to ensure the opponent cannot catch it in the standings by the end of the regular season. In Major League Baseball, with a regular season of 162 games, the magic number M is calculated as M = 163 - W₁ - L₂, in which W₁ is the leading team's current win total, and L₂ is the opponent's current loss total. A magic number of 0 indicates that the trailing team cannot catch the leading team."
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"(sports) A metric used to determine a team's required performance to make the playoffs.",
"The sum of one and the wins by one team and losses by an opponent necessary for the team to ensure the opponent cannot catch it in the standings by the end of the regular season. In Major League Baseball, with a regular season of 162 games, the magic number M is calculated as M = 163 - W₁ - L₂, in which W₁ is the leading team's current win total, and L₂ is the opponent's current loss total. A magic number of 0 indicates that the trailing team cannot catch the leading team."
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"A metric used to determine a team's required performance to make the playoffs.",
"The lowest such number that assures a team a playoff berth."
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"(sports) A metric used to determine a team's required performance to make the playoffs.",
"(by extension) The lowest such number that assures a team a playoff berth."
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"text": "We replaced the magic number 31 with a constant called MAX_DAYS_IN_MONTH."
}
],
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"A number which is manually entered into source code, rather than defined somewhere as a named constant; especially one which is arbitrary or lacks explanation."
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"id": "en-magic_number-en-noun-M0kUAHYQ",
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"(computing)",
"A number which is manually entered into source code, rather than defined somewhere as a named constant; especially one which is arbitrary or lacks explanation."
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],
"glosses": [
"A sentinel value which cannot occur in normal use, typically used as a placeholder (e.g. a fictitious date such as 2000-02-32)."
],
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],
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"(computing)",
"A sentinel value which cannot occur in normal use, typically used as a placeholder (e.g. a fictitious date such as 2000-02-32)."
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"A hash code, such as those used by some webmail servers to keep track of sessions."
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"(computing)",
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{
"ref": "1987 August 28, Ian Darwin, file(1)\"",
"text": "These files have a \"magic number\" stored in a particular place near the beginning of the file that tells the UNIX operating system that the file is a binary executable, and which of several types thereof."
}
],
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"A number or pattern in a binary file that identifies the filetype."
],
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"binary",
"binary#Adjective"
],
[
"filetype",
"filetype"
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"(computing)",
"A number or pattern in a binary file that identifies the filetype."
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"The number of neutrons or protons in nuclei which are required to fill the major quantum shells, and thus produce exceptionally stable nuclei: 2, 8, 20, 28, 50, 82 and 126."
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]
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"A metric used to determine a team's required performance to make the playoffs.",
"The sum of one and the wins by one team and losses by an opponent necessary for the team to ensure the opponent cannot catch it in the standings by the end of the regular season. In Major League Baseball, with a regular season of 162 games, the magic number M is calculated as M = 163 - W₁ - L₂, in which W₁ is the leading team's current win total, and L₂ is the opponent's current loss total. A magic number of 0 indicates that the trailing team cannot catch the leading team."
],
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"(sports) A metric used to determine a team's required performance to make the playoffs.",
"The sum of one and the wins by one team and losses by an opponent necessary for the team to ensure the opponent cannot catch it in the standings by the end of the regular season. In Major League Baseball, with a regular season of 162 games, the magic number M is calculated as M = 163 - W₁ - L₂, in which W₁ is the leading team's current win total, and L₂ is the opponent's current loss total. A magic number of 0 indicates that the trailing team cannot catch the leading team."
],
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"A metric used to determine a team's required performance to make the playoffs.",
"The lowest such number that assures a team a playoff berth."
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[
"playoffs",
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"(sports) A metric used to determine a team's required performance to make the playoffs.",
"(by extension) The lowest such number that assures a team a playoff berth."
],
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"broadly"
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"topics": [
"hobbies",
"lifestyle",
"sports"
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],
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{
"text": "We replaced the magic number 31 with a constant called MAX_DAYS_IN_MONTH."
}
],
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"A number which is manually entered into source code, rather than defined somewhere as a named constant; especially one which is arbitrary or lacks explanation."
],
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"(computing)",
"A number which is manually entered into source code, rather than defined somewhere as a named constant; especially one which is arbitrary or lacks explanation."
],
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"computing",
"engineering",
"mathematics",
"natural-sciences",
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],
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"A sentinel value which cannot occur in normal use, typically used as a placeholder (e.g. a fictitious date such as 2000-02-32)."
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"computing",
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],
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"(computing)",
"A sentinel value which cannot occur in normal use, typically used as a placeholder (e.g. a fictitious date such as 2000-02-32)."
],
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"computing",
"engineering",
"mathematics",
"natural-sciences",
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"A hash code, such as those used by some webmail servers to keep track of sessions."
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],
[
"hash code",
"hash code"
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"(computing)",
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"ref": "1987 August 28, Ian Darwin, file(1)\"",
"text": "These files have a \"magic number\" stored in a particular place near the beginning of the file that tells the UNIX operating system that the file is a binary executable, and which of several types thereof."
}
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.