install

To connect, set up or prepare something for use

Noun

  1. An installation: the process of installing a software application.
    • The install takes a long time, but you can run it in the background while working on other things.
  2. An installation: a software application that has been installed.
    • I've customized my local install; the out-of-the-box version looks a bit different.

Origin

From Middle English installen, from Old French installer, from Medieval Latin īnstallō (“to install, put in place, establish”), from in- + stallum (“stall”), from Frankish *stall (“stall, position, place”), from Proto-Germanic *stallaz (“place, position”), from Proto-Indo-European *stel-, *stAlǝn-, *stAlǝm- (“stem, trunk”). Cognate with Old High German stal (“location, stall”), Old English steall (“position, stall”), Old English onstellan (“to institute, create, originate, establish, give the example of”), Middle High German anstalt (“institute”), German anstellen (“to conduct, employ”), German einstellen (“to set, adjust, position”), Dutch aanstellen (“to appoint, commission, institute”), Dutch instellen (“to set up, establish”). More at in, stall.

Forms

installs enstall instal

Verb

  1. To connect, set up or prepare something for use
    • Across Japan, technology companies and private investors are racing to install devices that until recently they had little interest in: solar panels. Massive solar parks are popping up as part of a rapid build-up that...
    • Each TBM installs two-metre-wide rings made up of seven precast concrete segments produced on-site. Each ring takes approximately 45 minutes to one hour to install. - 2021 July 14, Paul Stephen, “A portal into the...

    1. (transitive, computing) To transfer software onto a device's permanent storage and put it in a state where it is ready to be run when needed, usually decompressing it if necessary and performing any necessary pre-first-run configuration.

      • I haven't installed the new operating system yet because of all the bugs.
  2. To admit formally into an office, rank or position.
    • He was installed as Chancellor of the University.
    • My husband rented a small, comfortable house, and I was installed as its mistress. - 1861, E. J. Guerin, Mountain Charley, page 12:

    Synonyms: seat

  3. To establish or settle in.
    • I installed myself in my usual chair by the fire.
    • At Kiwi, 40 miles from Nelson [New Zealand], eight women installed themselves in the goods shed, taking with them their knitting, and a supply of food and magazines. The demolition crew was unable to pull the building...

Forms

installs installing installed enstall instal

Antonyms

uninstall

Related

installation installer instalment installment

Derived

autoinstall coinstall deinstall installability installable installfest misinstall pay-per-install preinstall reinstall uninstalled