Word.ws English Dictionary

downpointer

downpointer noun: a pointer in a hierarchical data structure that points to the node that is down from the current node.

Noun

downpointer (plural downpointers)

  1. A pointer in a hierarchical data structure that points to the node that is down from the current node.
    • Except at level zero, the downpointer always points down.1969, Information Processing: Proceedings of the IFIP Congress, page 1249
    • […] this data structure differs from the tree […] illustrated in Fig. 1, only by having downpointers replaced by downtrees.1985, Society for Industrial, Applied Mathematics, SIAM Journal on Computing, volume 14, page 244
  2. An indicator that points toward the ground.
    • During one session , the subject used a canopy-mounted downpointer to estimate position in space relative to the ground, and in the other session the subject used a joystick-controlled, inside-out, aircraft attitude indicator.1989, Aviation Space and Environmental Medicine, page 492

Forms of downpointer

pluraldownpointers

Origin of downpointer

From down- + pointer.

Questions about downpointer

What does downpointer mean?
Downpointer means a pointer in a hierarchical data structure that points to the node that is down from the current node.
What part of speech is downpointer?
Downpointer is a noun.
What is the plural of downpointer?
The plural of downpointer is downpointers.

Words near downpointer in the dictionary

  1. downplayer
  2. downplayers
  3. downplaying
  4. downplayings
  5. downplays
  6. downpointer
  7. downpointers
  8. downposit
  9. downposits
  10. downpour
  11. downpoured

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: downpointer (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “downpointer.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/downpointer. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.