When Did the Term "Computer Science" First Appear?

JF Ptak Science Books   Quick Post

Some time ago I wrote a post on the origins of some scientific words, just to see how long they have been around--some are well-known in their newness (like "scientist" coming along in 1834, ¹  anonymously referenced in the Quarterly Review, volume 51, page 59), others not so.

And so when an interesting word relating to artificial intelligence appeared I wondered when AI itself did (J. McCarthy 1955 and then Marvin Minsky 1956)...which led to the question of how old the term "computer science" is, and so on. Not wanting to spend more than a half hour on this I decided to establish the Oxford English Dictionary as the baseline for earliness in the first (or at least very early) appearances in English of these words and let it go at that. So here's the list, a quick shake-and-bake on the early origins of some standard and not-so-standard words in computer science.

A footnote here is that 10 of the 38 words here appear during the life of Charles Babbage (whose eye are posted above). 

Notes:

1.  The word is provided to us in the text of an article on Mary Somerville by William Whewell who references the word "scientist" coming from "a gentleman" who was  I guess himself; he uses the word under his own name in 1840.

• Computer Science. 1956   N.Y. Times 28 Oct. iii. 21 (advt.)    "Unparalleled opportunities to associate with the prominent pioneers of computer science, at outstanding salaries. Electronic engineers (circuit designers and magnetics engineers), logical designers, [etc.]."

• Computer programming: 1952   Proc. ACM National Meeting (Toronto) 20/1   "In fact three principles should apply to computer programming and operation in general, and not just to code checking." This was followed by “computer programmer” after three years.  

• And so:

• computationalism, n.1979

• computationalist, n....1956

• computatist, n.1611

• computative, adj.a1538

• computator, n.1591

• compute, n.1483

• compute, v.1579

• computed, adj.1680

• computer, n.1613

• computeracy, n.1969

• computerate, adj.1981

• computerese, n.1960

• computeresque, adj.1978

• computer game, n.1955

• computer graphic, n.1963

• computer-graphic, adj.1965

• computerist, n.1964

• computeritis, n.1965

• computerization, n.1958

• computernik, n.1966

• computerology, n.1964

• computerphile, n.1967

• computerphobe, n.1974

• computer phobia, n.1972

• computer-phobic, n. ...1983

• computer program, n.1947

• computer programmer, n.1955

• computer programming...1952

• computer science, n.1956

• computer scientist, n.1957

• computer-speak, n.1968

• computer virus, n.1984

• computery, n.1960

• computery, adj.1965

• computing, n.1629

• computist, n.a1398

• computistic, adj.1847

• computistical, adj. 1895