autodecrement
|au-to-de-cre-ment|
🇺🇸
/ˌɔːtoʊdɪˈkrɛmənt/
🇬🇧
/ˌɔːtəʊdɪˈkrɛmənt/
automatic decrease (often by 1)
Etymology
'autodecrement' originates from a combination of the Greek-derived prefix 'auto-' (from Greek 'autos' meaning 'self') and the English word 'decrement' (itself modeled on Latin 'decrementum').
'decrement' entered English from Latin 'decrementum' (related to a reduction or decrease). The prefix 'auto-' (from Greek 'autos') was attached in modern technical usage to form 'autodecrement', a mid-20th-century coinage in computing to denote an automatic decrease operation.
Initially related to the general sense of a decrease, the compound 'autodecrement' took on a specialized technical meaning referring specifically to an automatic decrease operation in computing and hardware contexts.
Meanings by Part of Speech
Noun 1
an automatic decrease of a value (often by 1) performed by hardware or software; a feature or operation that decrements a counter or register without an explicit manual subtraction each time.
The microcontroller provides an autodecrement for the stack pointer after each pop.
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Noun 2
a specific addressing mode in some CPUs where a memory pointer or register is automatically decremented before or after access (often called autodecrement addressing or pre-decrement/post-decrement depending on timing).
The architecture supports autodecrement addressing, which simplifies stack operations.
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Verb 1
to cause something (e.g., a counter, register, or variable) to be automatically decremented, typically by 1, usually by enabling or invoking an autodecrement mechanism.
Set the loop control so it autodecrements on each iteration.
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Last updated: 2025/11/24 22:54