What does allocator mean?
An allocator is a person, body, or mechanism that assigns and distributes resources such as money, time, tasks, or materials. The word is most at home in formal and technical contexts: in finance and public administration, an allocator decides how a budget is apportioned among departments or projects, while in computing an allocator is a specific component of a system that manages memory, reserving and releasing blocks of it as programs request them. The computing sense is especially prominent in software engineering, where terms like 'memory allocator' describe routines that keep programs supplied with the storage they need. The noun derives from the verb 'allocate', which comes from the Latin 'allocare', meaning to place or set aside for a purpose. Though rarely heard in casual speech, 'allocator' is a precise and useful term wherever the act of distributing limited resources is central to the discussion.
nounA person or thing that allocates resources, funds, or duties; in computing, a component of a memory-management system that assigns portions of memory to programs or processes.
- A person or body that assigns or distributes resources, funds, or responsibilities.
- In computing, a routine or component that manages the assignment of memory to programs and data structures.
"The central allocator distributes the annual budget across the charity's regional offices."
"The central allocator distributes the annual budget across the charity's regional offices."
"The program crashed when the memory allocator ran out of free space to assign."
The standard plural simply adds -s. It applies equally to human allocators and to software allocators in computing contexts.
"Different allocators can be swapped into the program to improve performance."
Every time your computer runs a program, a tireless allocator is slicing up memory behind the scenes — thousands of times per second.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of allocator
The word allocator derives from the verb 'allocate', formed from the Latin 'allocare', meaning 'to place' or 'to set aside', from 'ad-' ('to') and 'locare' ('to place'), itself from 'locus' ('place'). 'Allocate' entered English in the mid-seventeenth century, and 'allocator' arose later as its agent noun, denoting one who allocates. It shares its Latin root with words such as 'local', 'location', and 'dislocate'.
Related word forms
How allocator is actually used
The word is largely formal and technical. Outside of finance and administration, its dominant use today is in computer science, where 'memory allocator' (or simply 'allocator') refers to software such as malloc in C that manages dynamic memory. It is not a word of everyday conversation, but it is standard in technical documentation.
Easily confused with allocator
An alligator is a large crocodilian reptile, while an allocator is a person or mechanism that assigns resources or memory.
An allocation is the amount or share that has been distributed, whereas an allocator is the agent or mechanism doing the distributing.