wetware en · NOUN
Pronunciation
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *wed- Proto-Germanic *wētaz Proto-West Germanic *wāt Old English wǣt Middle English wet English wet Proto-Indo-European *sem- Proto-Germanic *samþuz /*samftuz Proto-Indo-European *-yos Proto-Indo-European *-yós Proto-Germanic *-jaz Proto-West Germanic *-ī Proto-West Germanic *samft(ī) Old English sōfte Middle English softe English soft Proto-Germanic *warō Proto-West Germanic *waru Old English waru Middle English ware English -ware English softwarebf. English -ware English wetware From wet + -ware (suffix denoting a type of software).
Meanings
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(humorous, slang, uncountable) The human brain or mind, likened to a computer part.
What is not understood is the power hunger that resides in what the psychiatrist Kenneth Colby calls the "wetware"— the human brain about which we know very little except that it is composed of about 75 percent water.
1963, Walter Millis, James Real, The Abolition of War, Macmillan, page xv:… cyberpunk dream to leave behind the fallible "meat" or "wetware" of the body by entering the datasphere ...
2001, Dr. Peter Knight, Conspiracy Culture: From Kennedy to 'The X-Files, Routledge, →ISBN, page 183:Over the weekend, an impressive crossword-solving computer program, called Dr. Fill, which I wrote about earlier, matched its digital wits against the wetware of 600 of the nation’s best human solvers at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in Brooklyn.
2012 March 18, Steve Lohr, “In Crosswords, It’s Man Over Machine, for Now”, in NYT, retrieved 17 Sep 2012:
- (humorous, slang, uncommon, uncountable) The human brain or mind, likened to a computer part. ▸ Organic or biological matter in general.
- (uncountable) The underlying generative code for an organism, as found in the genetic material, in the biochemistry of the cells, or in the architecture of the body’s tissues.