Pl. -i, -uses. [L.; = ‘small stone,’ dim. of calx stone, pebble; also, a stone or counter used in playing draughts, a stone used in reckoning on the abacus or counting board, whence, reckoning, calculation, account; and a stone used in voting, whence, vote, sentence.]
ǁ 1. Med. ‘A stone. A generic term for concretions occurring accidentally in the animal body’ (Syd. Soc. Lex.). Calculi are of many kinds, and receive names from the various parts of the body in which they occur, as renal (in the kidneys), vesical (in the bladder), prostatic (in the prostate), intestinal (in the intestines, chiefly of animals), etc., or from the nature of their composition, as lithic acid, uric acid calculus, etc.
[1619. W. Sclater, Exp. Thess. (1627), I. To Rdr. 5. That flagellum studiosorum, Calculus Renum.]
1732. Arbuthnot, Rules of Diet, 420. A Human Calculus, or Stone.
1760. trans. Keysler’s Trav., IV. 339. Bezoar is … a stone or calculus taken from a species of the East and West Indian goats.
1807. M. Baillie, Morb. Anat., 308. Calculi when divided … exhibit most commonly a laminated structure.
1849. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., IV. 85/1. The oriental bezoard, a resinous intestinal calculus.
1880. Med. Temp. Jrnl., Oct., 6. Biliary calculi are not infrequently due to this influence.
† 2. Computation, calculation. Obs.
1684. T. Burnet, The. Earth, I. 166. Suppose the abyss was but half as deep as the deep ocean, to make this calculus answer, all the dry land ought to be cover’d with mountains.
1693. E. Halley, in Phil. Trans., XVII. 654. Were this Calculus founded on the Experience of a very great number of Years.
1817. Coleridge, Biog. Lit., 140. For the purposes of mathematical calculus it is indifferent which force we term negative, and which positive.
3. Math. A system or method of calculation, ‘a certain way of performing mathematical investigations and resolutions’ (Hutton); a branch of mathematics involving or leading to calculations, as the DIFFERENTIAL, INTEGRAL Calculus, etc. The differential calculus is often spoken of as ‘the calculus.’
1672. Phil. Trans., VII. 4017. I cannot yet reduce my Observations to a calculus. Ibid. (1750), XLVII. xi. 62. Mr. Clairant … kept his calculus a profound secret. Ibid. (1804), XCIV. 219. If the introduction of the new calculi, as they have been called, has extended the bounds of science.
1796. Hutton, Math. Dict., I. 234/2. We say the Arithmetical or Numeral Calculus, the Algebraical Calculus, the Differential Calculus, the Exponential Calculus, the Fluxional Calculus, the Integral Calculus, the Literal or Symbolical Calculus, &c…. Algebraical, Literal or Symbolical CALCULUS is the method of performing algebraical calculations by letters or other symbols.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev. (1872), III. II. i. 60. Science which cannot with all its calculuses, differential, integral, and of variations, calculate the Problem of Three gravitating Bodies.
1846. Mill, Logic, III. xxiv. § 6. The general problem of the algebraical calculus.
1854. G. Boole, Invest. Laws Th., i. 11 (L.). The exhibition of Logic in the form of a Calculus.
1878. Geo. Eliot, Coll. Breakf. P., 279. Fount of spirit force Beyond the calculus.
