Word.ws English Dictionary

false drop

false drop noun: a non-targeted card that falls out from a card data deck, when a rod search is performed.

Noun

false drop (plural false drops)

  1. A non-targeted card that falls out from a card data deck, when a rod search is performed.
  2. Targets, hits, that are not relevant in an information retrieval search.
  3. Retrieved, but unwanted, document representations.
  4. noise in an information retrieval search.
    • False drop (a): a false drop is a retrieved item that meets the syntactic requirements of a query but not the semantic requirements of a query […]1992, Carolyn Watters, Dictionary of Information Science and Technology, Boston: Academic Press

Forms of false drop

pluralfalse drops

Origin of false drop

From rod- (needle-) based retrieval in edge-punched card-based data systems.

Questions about false drop

What does false drop mean?
False drop means a non-targeted card that falls out from a card data deck, when a rod search is performed.
What part of speech is false drop?
False drop is a noun.
What is the plural of false drop?
The plural of false drop is false drops.

Words near false drop in the dictionary

  1. false dilemmas
  2. false documentaries
  3. false documentary
  4. false door
  5. false doors
  6. false drop
  7. false drops
  8. false easting
  9. false eastings
  10. false economies
  11. false economy

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: false drop (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: “false drop.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/false_drop. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.