sparse : Dictionary / Wörterbuch (BEOLINGUS, TU Chemnitz)

English Dictionary: sparse	by the DICT Development Group
4 results for sparse
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
sparse adj not dense; "a thin beard"; "trees were sparse" [syn: sparse, thin]
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
Sparse \Sparse\, a. [Compar. {Sparser}; superl. {Sparsest}.] [L. sparsus, p. p. of spargere to strew, scatter. Cf. {Asperse}, {Disperse}.] 1. Thinly scattered; set or planted here and there; not being dense or close together; as, a sparse population. --Carlyle. 2. (Bot.) Placed irregularly and distantly; scattered; -- applied to branches, leaves, peduncles, and the like.
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
Sparse \Sparse\, v. t. [L. sparsus, p. p. of spargere to scatter.] To scatter; to disperse. [Obs.] --Spenser.
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (15Feb98) [foldoc]:
sparse A sparse {matrix} (or {vector}, or {array}) is one in which most of the elements are zero. If storage space is more important than access speed, it may be preferable to store a sparse matrix as a list of (index, value) pairs or use some kind of {hash} scheme or {associative memory}. (1995-01-16)