vector

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin vector (“carrier, transporter”), from vehō (“I carry, I transport, I bear”), also ultimately the root of English vehicle. The “person or entity that passes along an urban legend or other meme” sense derives from the disease sense. The mathematics sense was coined by Irish mathematician and astronomer William Rowan Hamilton in 1846.

noun

1. (mathematics) A directed quantity, one with both magnitude and direction; the signed difference between two points.
   As examples of vector quantities may be mentioned the distance between any two given points, a velocity, a force, an acceleration, angular velocity, intensity of magnetization flux of heat. 1914, The New Student's Reference Work
2. (mathematics) An ordered tuple representing such.
3. (mathematics) Any member of a (generalized) vector space.
   The vectors in ℚ[X] are the single-variable polynomials with rational coefficients: one is x⁴²+1/(137)x-1.
4. (aviation) A chosen course or direction for motion, as of an aircraft.
   I was told to fly out on a vector of 100 degrees to meet a strong plot of aircraft 30 miles from the coast. 2017, Mark Chambers, Tony Holmes, Nakajima B5N ‘Kate’ and B6N ‘Jill’ Units, page 32
5. (epidemiology) A carrier of a disease-causing agent.
6. (sociology) A person or entity that passes along an urban legend or other meme.
   These days, their primary job is to insist that Facebook is a fun place to share baby photos and sell old couches, not a vector for hate speech, misinformation, and violent extremist propaganda. 2020-10-12, Andrew Marantz, “Why Facebook Can’t Fix Itself”, in The New Yorker
7. (psychology) A recurring psychosocial issue that stimulates growth and development in the personality.
8. The way in which the eyes are drawn across the visual text. The trail that a book cover can encourage the eyes to follow from certain objects to others.
9. (computing, operating systems) A memory address containing the address of a code entry point, usually one which is part of a table and often one that is dereferenced and jumped to during the execution of an interrupt.
10. (programming) A one-dimensional array.
    To create a vector of students in a class, you will want the vector to be large enough […] 2004, Jesse Liberty, Bradley L. Jones, Sams Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days, page 694
11. (computer graphics, attributive) A graphical representation using outlines; vector graphics.
    a vector image, vector graphics
12. (molecular biology) A DNA molecule used to carry genetic information from one organism into another.

verb

1. To set (particularly an aircraft) on a course toward a selected point.
   […] if love is vectored toward an object and Elinor's here flies toward Marianne, Marianne's in turn toward Willoughby. 1994, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Tendencies
2. (computing) To redirect to a vector, or code entry point.