opal : Dictionary / Wörterbuch (BEOLINGUS, TU Chemnitz)

English Dictionary: opal	by the DICT Development Group
4 results for opal
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
opal n a translucent mineral consisting of hydrated silica of variable color; some varieties are used as gemstones
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
Opal \O"pal\, n. [L. opalus: cf. Gr. [?], Skr. upala a rock, stone, precious stone: cf. F. opale.] (Min.) A mineral consisting, like quartz, of silica, but inferior to quartz in hardness and specific gravity. Note: The precious opal presents a peculiar play of colors of delicate tints, and is highly esteemed as a gem. One kind, with a varied play of color in a reddish ground, is called the harlequin opal. The fire opal has colors like the red and yellow of flame. Common opal has a milky appearance. Menilite is a brown impure variety, occurring in concretions at Menilmontant, near Paris. Other varieties are cacholong, girasol, hyalite, and geyserite.
From U.S. Gazetteer (1990) [gazetteer]:
Opal, SD Zip code(s): 57765 Opal, WY (town, FIPS 57810) Location: 41.76996 N, 110.32082 W Population (1990): 95 (54 housing units) Area: 1.1 sq km (land), 0.0 sq km (water)
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (15Feb98) [foldoc]:
Opal 1. A {DSP} language. ["OPAL: A High Level Language and Environment for DSP boards on PC", J.P. Schwartz et al, Proc ICASSP-89, 1989]. 2. The language of the {object-oriented database} {GemStone}. ["Making Smalltalk a Database System", G. Copeland et al, Proc SIGMOD'84, ACM 1984, pp.316- 325]. 3. A {simulation} language with provision for {stochastic variable}s. An extension of {Autostat}. ["C-E-I-R OPAL", D. Pilling, Internal Report, C.E.I.R. Ltd. (1963)]. 4. A language for compiler testing said to be used internally by {DEC}. 5. A {functional programming} language designed at the {Technische Universitaet Berlin} as a testbed for the development of {functional program}s. OPAL integrates concepts from Algebraic Specification and Functional Programming, which favour the (formal) development of (large) production-quality software written in a {purely functional} style. The core of OPAL is a {strongly typed}, {higher-order}, {strict} applicative language which belongs to the tradition of {Hope} and {ML}. The algebraic flavour of OPAL is visible in the syntactical appearance and in the preference of {parameterisation} to {polymorphism}. OPAL supports: {information hiding} - each language unit is divided into an interface (signature) and an implementation part; selective import; {parameterised module}s; free constructor {views} on {sorts}, which allow pattern-based function definitions despite quite different implementations; full {overloading} of names; puristic scheme language with no {built-in} data types (except {Boolean}s and denotations). OPAL and its predecessor OPAL-0 have been used for some time at the Technische Universitaet Berlin in CS courses and for research into optimising compilers for applicative languages. The OPAL compiler itself is writte entirely in OPAL. An overview is given in "OPAL: Design And Implementation of an Algebraic Programming Language". {Home (http://www.cs.tu-berlin.de/~opal/)}. {(ftp://ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de/pub/local/uebb/papers/DesignImplOpal.ps.gz)}. (1995-02-16)