floating-point
adjective
float·ing-point
| \ ˈflō-tiŋ-ˌpȯint
\
\
variants:
or floating point
Definition of floating-point
mathematics
: using or involving a notation in which a number is represented as a number with an absolute value between 1 and the base (see base entry 1 sense 4e(2)) multiplied by a power of the number base indicated by an exponent (as in 4.52E2 for 452 in base 10)
A floating point operation requires at least several thousand elementary binary operations.— Geoffrey Murray If a simple operation like multiplying floating-point numbers would require a set of instructions, then a procedure of any useful scale would involve putting many such sets of instructions together.— Andrew Hodges
— compare fixed-point, scientific notation
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