Word.ws English Dictionary

reference counting

reference counting noun: the technique of storing the number of handles, pointers, or references to a resource such as a block of memory, disk space, or an object, so that the system can determine when the resource is no longer in use.

Noun

reference counting (uncountable)

  1. The technique of storing the number of handles, pointers, or references to a resource such as a block of memory, disk space, or an object, so that the system can determine when the resource is no longer in use.

Questions about reference counting

What does reference counting mean?
Reference counting means the technique of storing the number of handles, pointers, or references to a resource such as a block of memory, disk space, or an object, so that the system can determine when the resource is no longer in use.
What part of speech is reference counting?
Reference counting is a noun.

Words near reference counting in the dictionary

  1. reference
  2. reference angle
  3. reference angles
  4. reference book
  5. reference books
  6. reference counting
  7. reference data
  8. reference electrode
  9. reference electrodes
  10. reference frame
  11. reference frames

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: reference counting (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: “reference counting.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/reference_counting. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.