Word.ws English Dictionary

spaghetti sort

spaghetti sort noun: a linear-time algorithm for sorting a sequence of items, analogous to standing a number of strands of spaghetti of different lengths upright on a surface and noting the order in which they are encountered when lowering one's hand from above.

spaghetti sort: a linear-time algorithm for sorting a sequence of items, analogous to standing a number of strands...
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Noun

spaghetti sort (plural spaghetti sorts)

  1. A linear-time algorithm for sorting a sequence of items, analogous to standing a number of strands of spaghetti of different lengths upright on a surface and noting the order in which they are encountered when lowering one's hand from above.

Forms of spaghetti sort

pluralspaghetti sorts

Origin of spaghetti sort

Introduced by A. K. Dewdney in a Scientific American column.

Questions about spaghetti sort

What does spaghetti sort mean?
Spaghetti sort means a linear-time algorithm for sorting a sequence of items, analogous to standing a number of strands of spaghetti of different lengths upright on a surface and noting the order in which they are encountered when lowering one's hand from above.
What part of speech is spaghetti sort?
Spaghetti sort is a noun.
What is the plural of spaghetti sort?
The plural of spaghetti sort is spaghetti sorts.

Words near spaghetti sort in the dictionary

  1. spaghetti pizza
  2. spaghetti pizzas
  3. spaghetti red
  4. spaghetti sauce
  5. spaghetti sauces
  6. spaghetti sort
  7. spaghetti sorts
  8. spaghetti squash
  9. spaghetti squashes
  10. spaghetti stack
  11. spaghetti stacks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: spaghetti sort (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: “spaghetti sort.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/spaghetti_sort. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.