capability

Etymology

Formed in Modern English as capable + -ity.

noun

  1. the power or ability to generate an outcome
  2. (computing) A digital token allowing a user or process to interact in a specified way with an object that is subject to access control.
    Enforcing a security policy means controlling the rights users can acquire to data. In a capability machine, a user’s rights are defined by the capabilities he (or a process acting on his behalf) can obtain and the access rights conferred by those capabilities. 1987 November, Richard Y. Kain, Carl E. Landwehr, “On Access Checking in Capability-Based Systems”, in IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, volume SE-13, number 2, pages 202–207

Attribution / Disclaimer All definitions come directly from Wiktionary using the Wiktextract library. We do not edit or curate the definitions for any words, if you feel the definition listed is incorrect or offensive please suggest modifications directly to the source (wiktionary/capability), any changes made to the source will update on this page periodically.