Register

Historically, a register was a sign or chalkboard onto which people would write cash transactions for later bookkeeping, often with chalk. It can also be used to mean a paper register such as one would keep of a check book .
To register a charity means to apply to the government for a non-profit organisation to be officially recognised as such, and thus gain more credibility and possible tax relief.
In Britain and Australia, births, deaths, and marriages are registered at a registry office .
In trade and commerce, the term register is used in Australia and America as a short form for cash register, a device for tracking retail sales and known to the British as a till. This name came into use because the cash register generally replaced earlier registers in use.
In digital circuits, registers are various devices used to store and process data, implemented with multivibrators to form e.g. flip-flops. In computing, a hardware register is a placeholder for information about some hardware condition, configuration, or buffer, whereas a processor register is a component inside a central processing unit for storing information, such as a memory address, or the inputs or results of a computation. The origin of the name is similar.
In animal fancy, a register or registry is used to record specimens of a pure breed.
In music, register is the relative "height" or range of a note, set of pitches or pitch classes, melody, part, instrument or group of instruments.
The Register [1] is a technology news website.
The Des Moines Register [2] is a newspaper in Des Moines, Iowa.
A register is a subset of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. For example, the average English speaker will likely adhere more closely to prescribed grammar, pronounce gerunds and present participles with a /N/ sound, and refrain from using the word "ain't" when speaking in a formal setting, but the same person could violate all of those restrictions in an informal setting; these two varieties of speech are separate registers of English.
A register is an outlet for forced air, usually as part of a forced air heating and cooling system.

Last updated: 10-24-2005 02:56:19

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