Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.

Definition: Server |
ServerNoun1. A person whose occupation is to serve at table (as in a restaurant). 2. (court games) the player who serves to start a point. 3. (computer science) a computer that provides client stations with access to files and printers as shared resources to a computer network. 4. Utensil used in serving food or drink. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "server" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1866. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Computing | Server n. A kind of daemon that performs a service for the requester and which often runs on a computer other than the one on which the requestor/client runs. A particularly common term on the Internet, which is rife with `web servers', `name servers', `domain servers', `news servers', `finger servers', and the like. Source: Jargon File. |
Occupations | Serves meals to patrons according to established rules of etiquette, working in formal setting: Presents menu to diner, suggesting dinner courses, appropriate wines, and answering questions regarding food preparation. Writes order on check or memorizes it. Relays order to kitchen and serves courses from kitchen and service bars. Garnishes and decorates dishes preparatory to serving. Serves patrons from chafing dish at table. Observes diners to respond to any additional requests and to determine when meal has been completed. Totals bill and accepts payment or refers patron to CASHIER (clerical) II 211.462-010. May carve meats, bone fish and fowl, and prepare flaming dishes and desserts at patron's table. May be designated Waiter/Waitress, Banquet (hotel & rest.) when serving at banquets. (references) |
| Serves food to patrons at counters and tables of coffeeshops, lunchrooms, and other dining establishments where food service is informal: Presents menu, answers questions, and makes suggestions regarding food and service. Writes order on check or memorizes it. Relays order to kitchen and serves courses from kitchen and service bars. Observes guests to respond to additional requests and to determine when meal has been completed. Totals bill and accepts payment or refers patron to CASHIER (clerical) II 211.462-010. May ladle soup, toss salads, portion pies and desserts, brew coffee, and perform other services as determined by establishment's size and practices. May clear and reset counters or tables at conclusion of each course [DINING ROOM ATTENDANT (hotel & rest.) 311.677-018]. (references) | |
| Serves food from counters and steamtables to cafeteria patrons: Serves salads, vegetables, meat, breads, and cocktails, ladles soups and sauces, portions desserts, and fills beverage cups and glasses as indicated by customer. Adds relishes and garnishes according to instructions from COUNTER SUPERVISOR (hotel & rest.) 311.137-010. Scrubs and polishes counters, steamtables, and other equipment. May replenish foods at serving stations. May brew coffee and tea. May carve meat. May accept payment for food, using cash register or adding machine to total check. May prepare and serve salads and be known as Salad Counter Attendant (hotel & rest.). May serve food to passenger from steamtable on railroad dining car and be known as Steamtable Attendant, Railroad (r.r. trans.). (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
A server in computing is:
- A computer software application that carries out some task on behalf of users. This is usually divided into file serving, allowing users to store and access files on a common computer; and application serving, where the software runs a computer program to carry out some task for the users. This is the original meaning of the term.
- The term is now also used to mean the actual computer on which the software runs. Originally server software would be located on a mainframe computer or minicomputer. These have largely been replaced by computers built using a more robust version of the microprocessor technology that is used in personal computers, and the server term was adopted to describe such microprocessor based machines.
Server Hardware
A Server computer shares its resources, such as peripherals and file storage with the users' computers, called clients, on a network. It is possible for a computer to be a client and a server simultaneously, by connecting to itself in the same way a separate computer would.
Many new devices now come with server capabilities. The X-Internet, Web Services, and Microsoft's .NET initiative all work to make even the smallest system a server.
Many large enterprises employ numerous servers to support their needs. A collection of servers in one location is often referred to as a server farm.
Server Operating Systems
The rise of the microprocessor based server was facilitated by the development of several versions of Unix to run on the Intel microprocessor architecture, including Solaris, Linux and FreeBSD. The Microsoft Windows series of operating systems also now includes server versions that support multitasking and other features required for servers, beginning with Windows NT.
Historical Note
Mainframes and minicomputers were originally accessed using dumb terminals, which were unable to carry out any significant processing. This largely ended with the widespread use of personal computers by users.
See Also
- Mail server
- Web server
- FTP server
- peer-to-peer
- client-server model
- History of computing hardware II
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Server."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The term web server can mean one of two things:The most common HTTP servers are:
- a computer responsible for serving web pages, mostly HTML documents, via the HTTP protocol to clients, mostly web browsers;
- a software program that is working as a daemon serving web documents.
The most commonly-used web server, Apache, with over 60% of market share as of March 2003, is available from the Apache Software Foundation.
- Apache HTTP Server from the Apache Software Foundation
- Internet Information Server (IIS) from Microsoft
- Caudium (formerly Roxen)
- AOLserver from America Online
- thttpd from ACME Laboratories
- Zeus Web Server from Zeus Technology
- Sun ONE from Sun Microsystems (formerly Netscape's iPlanet nee Enterprise)
- iPlanet from Netscape Communications Corporation
- WebSTAR from 4D, Inc.
- Stronghold from Red Hat
- NCSA HTTPd
- Microsoft Windows PWS
You can find the current web servers statistics from the Netcraft Web Server Survey.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Web server."
| The following table is compiled from various sources, across various languages. When English abbreviations or acronyms come from a non-English source, this is noted. | |||
| Entry | Source | Expression | Field |
| SEM | English | Server Enhancement Module | Computer - Computer - (org.) |
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |||
Synonyms: ServerSynonyms: host (n), waiter (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Tergiversation | Time server, time pleaser; timist, Vicar of Bray, trimmer, ambidexter;time server, time pleaser; timist, Vicar of Bray, trimmer, ambidexter; weathercock; (changeable); Janus. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Server |
| English words defined with "server": dedicated file server ♦ footfault ♦ non-dedicated file server. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "server": Active Server Pages, Application Software Installation Server ♦ Communications Server, compute server, cycle server ♦ disk server, Domain Name Server ♦ Exchange Server ♦ FTP server ♦ HTTP server ♦ Internet Chess Server, Internet Go Server, Internet Information Server, Internet Server Application Programming Interface ♦ mail server, Microsoft Internet Information Server ♦ nym server ♦ POP server, print server, process server, proxy server ♦ server push, server room, SQL server, standalone server, System Management Server ♦ terminal server ♦ virtual server ♦ web server ♦ X server. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Server" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. Dutch (server), German (server), Italian (server), Serbo-Croatian (server), Spanish (server). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Movie/TV Titles | Server Sundaram (1964) The Subpoena Server (1906) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Periodicals | |||
High Tech |
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Consumer Goods | |||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
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| "Server Room" by Peter Becker Commentary: "Sony DSC F505V." | "Server" by Igor Kasalovic Commentary: "Server. A part of equipment. size : 1024*768." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Business | The growth and progress of the server market correlates closely with that for groupware. (references) | |
US firms hold the majority of the PC, server and switch market as well as the PC software market. (references) | ||
The Japanese PC server market grew as much as 30 percent in 1999 in terms of number of units shipped. (references) | ||
Civil Liberties | Chad | The sole Internet access server is provided by the government-owned telecommunications monopoly. (references) |
United Arab Emirates | A proxy server blocks material regarded as pornographic or as promoting radical Islamic ideologies. (references) | |
Qatar | Internet service is censored for pornographic content through a proxy server, which blocks Web sites containing certain key words and phrases. (references) | |
Economic History | Australia | IBM lays claim to 30 percent of the local server market. (references) |
Australia | It is expected that sales to ASPs will drive the server market as well. (references) | |
Australia | At present, local white box server assemblers account for only 10 percent of the Australian market. (references) | |
Travel | Saudi Arabia | One to three cups of Saudi coffee should be taken for politeness, after which the cup should be wiggled between thumb and forefinger when returning it to the server to indicate that you have finished. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Server" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 99.39% of the time. "Server" is used about 1,480 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 99.39% | 1,471 | 5,511 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.4% | 6 | 143,867 |
| Lexical Verb (infinitive) | 0.13% | 2 | 245,945 |
| Unclassified Items | 0.07% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 1,480 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following table summarizes the usage of "server" based on a population census conducted in the United States. Ranks and frequencies are based on all names reported and classified. |
| Name | Usage/Gender | Usage per 100 million Persons | Rank in USA |
| Server | Last name | 200 | 36,871 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits. | |||
Expressions using "server": active Server Pages ♦ affidavit by process server ♦ altar server ♦ application server ♦ application Software Installation Server ♦ client server ♦ communications Server ♦ compute server ♦ cycle server ♦ database server ♦ dedicated file server ♦ disk server ♦ domain Name Server ♦ exchange Server ♦ file server ♦ FTP server ♦ HTTP server ♦ internet Chess Server ♦ internet Go Server ♦ internet Information Server ♦ internet Server Application Programming Interface ♦ LAN server ♦ licensed server ♦ logon server ♦ mail server ♦ MExE server ♦ Microsoft Internet Information Server ♦ Microsoft SQL Server ♦ mobile execution environment server ♦ name server ♦ nym server ♦ pop server ♦ print server ♦ process server ♦ proxy server ♦ reliable transfer server ♦ SDP server ♦ server application process ♦ server Message Block ♦ server node ♦ server push ♦ server room ♦ service discovery protocol server ♦ SQL server ♦ standalone server ♦ system Management Server ♦ terminal server ♦ time server ♦ virtual server ♦ web server ♦ X server. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "server": server-backed, server-based, server-centric, server-compliant, server-lan, server-parsed HTML, server-side include, server-to-network, server-to-server. | |
Ending with "server": bw-server, file-server, x-server. | |
Containing "server": client-server model, client-server-based. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day | Expression | Frequency per Day |
terra server | 4,778 | counter strike server | 453 |
server | 4,750 | rack mount server | 441 |
ftp server | 3,071 | process server | 437 |
dedicated server | 2,245 | list server | 410 |
web server | 2,202 | personal web server | 394 |
proxy server | 1,438 | smtp server | 382 |
2003 server window | 1,227 | ping port port server sql | 370 |
mail server | 1,203 | emule server | 355 |
newsgroup server free | 1,191 | snap server | 354 |
news server | 961 | web site server | 352 |
sql server | 889 | dedicated server hosting | 343 |
internet server | 795 | free proxy server | 336 |
free server | 787 | apache web server | 323 |
free news server | 754 | opteron server | 306 |
time server | 636 | terminal server | 305 |
window 2000 server | 626 | active server page | 303 |
fax server | 539 | server software | 297 |
email server | 517 | dual opteron server | 296 |
print server | 484 | unix server | 294 |
dns server | 474 | terra server microsoft | 292 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Language | Translations for "server"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | tabaka (chase, plate, salver, tray, waiter), pjatancë (charger, plate), lojtar që kryen shërbimin. (various references) | |
Arabic | ملقي الكرة, مستهل ضربة الكرة في التنس, نادل, خادم مقهي. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | пристав (process server), приспособенец (compromiser, time server, trimmer). (various references) | |
Chinese | 服务器 (servers), 服務器 , 服務員 (waiter, waitress), 伺服器 . (various references) | |
Czech | servírovací příbor, podávající hráè. (various references) | |
Danish | server, hjælper, hjælpeenhed. (various references) | |
Dutch | server. (various references) | |
Esperanto | servilo. (various references) | |
Farsi | نوکر (Handyman, Help, Henchman, Lackey, Man, Manservant, Menial, Servant, Valet, Yesman), کمک کننده , خدمتکار (Chambermaid, Damosel, Damsel, Servant), خدمتگذار. (various references) | |
Finnish | serveri, palvelin. (various references) | |
French | serveur. (various references) | |
German | server, Diener (attendant, butler, follower, manservant, menials, menservants, servant, servants, servers, servitor, valet). (various references) | |
Greek | server, κεντρικός υπολογιστής, σταθμός εξυπηρετήσεως, υπηρέτησ (dependant, fag, footman, lackey, servant, servitor, valet), εξυπηρετητής, διεκπεραιωτής, δίσκοσ (disc, discus, disk, puck, salver, tray, waiter). (various references) | |
Hebrew | מגיש (announcer, feeder, presenter), בעיטת הפתיחה (kickoff). (various references) | |
Hungarian | szerváló, ministráns (acolyte), felszolgáló. (various references) | |
Italian | server. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | ゴルフ場 (ace, circle, circlet, circlip, circuit, circuit breaker, circuit training, circular fluorescent lamp, circular skirt, circulation, circulator, circumscribe, circumscription, circus, club, Gauloise, golf course, golf links, gondola, gong, goods or services without charge, grounder, saber, sabre, sabre-toothed tiger, sardine, sardonyx, search, searcher, searchlight, serge, sergeant, servant, serve, serve point, service, service area, service car, service girl, service room, service station, service yard, snap ring, sports club, support system, surcharge, surf cast, surf casting, surf rider, surf roller, surf ski, surf trolling, surfboard, surfer, surfing, surge, surveillance, survey, Surveyor, third, thirty). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | サーバー , サーバ . (various references) | |
Korean | 서버 (servers). (various references) | |
Manx | reireyder (administrator, controller, manager). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | erversay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | servidor (attendant, boy, dependant, dependent, pursuivant, servant, valent), usuário (user). (various references) | |
Romanian | oportunist (opportunist, the vicar of bray, time server, time serving), conformist (conformist, time server, time serving). (various references) | |
Russian | сервер (srv), спецпроцессор, поднос (salver, tray), подающий мяч (pitcher). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | server, poslužavnik (salver, tray), onaj koji služi. (various references) | |
Spanish | servidor (attender, manservant, servant, vassal). (various references) | |
Swedish | stöd (abutment, backing, buttress, console, countenance, crutch, endorsement, indorsation, indorsement, linchpin, litter, patronage, prop, rest, stand by, stay, support, supporter, trestle), basenhet. (various references) | |
Turkish | servis takımı (service, services), servis atan oyuncu, tepsi (salver, tray), rahip yardımcısı (acolyte), hizmetçi (charwoman, domestic, domestic help, domestic servant, factotum, handmaid, help, helper, housemaid, maid, maidservant, menial, servant, servant maid, servitor, skivvy, slavey, waiting girl, waiting maid). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | гравець, який подає м'яч, піднос (cabaret, salver, tray, waiter). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | người hầu (domestic, lackey, lacquey, menial, satellite, servant). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "server": servers. (additional references) | |
Words ending with "server": conserver, deserver, interobserver, observer, preserver, reserver, timeserver. (additional references) | |
Words containing "server": conservers, deservers, interobservers, observers, preservers, reservers, timeservers. (additional references) | |
| |
"Server" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Cervera, eserve, Kervern, Sarva, Seaver, selver, serere, serev, serever, serger, serovar, Servae, serval, servay, Servera, servere, servery, servey, servier, servilr, servir, servire, servor, servy, Severb, severn, surver, survery, survex, Verveer, zerve. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "server" (pronounced ser"ver) |
| 3 | -er" v er | fervor, observer, preserver. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
Direct Anagrams: revers, verser. | |
| Words within the letters "e-e-r-r-s-v" | |
-1 letter: serer, serve, sever, veers, verse. | |
-2 letters: errs, ever, eves, rees, revs, seer, sere, veer, vees. | |
-3 letters: ere, err, ers, eve, ree, res, rev, see, ser, vee. | |
-4 letters: er, es, re. | |
| Words containing the letters "e-e-r-r-s-v" | |
+1 letter: reavers, reivers, reserve, reverbs, reveres, reverse, reverso, reverts, reviser, rievers, servers, severer, swerver, vergers, versers. | |
+2 letters: breviers, coverers, derivers, deserver, evertors, forevers, grievers, hoverers, nervures, observer, overseer, oversure, perverse, perverts, preavers, preserve, ravelers, raveners, recovers, recurves, redrives, removers, reproves, reserved, reserver, reserves, resilver, resolver, restrive, restrove, resurvey, revelers, reverers, reveries, reversal, reversed, reverser, reverses, reversos, revilers, revisers, revivers, revokers, riveters, rivieres, servicer, shiverer, silverer, slaverer, sliverer, swervers, traverse, verdures, verniers, waverers. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Digital Art 8. Quotations: Non-fiction | 9. Usage Frequency 10. Names: Frequency 11. Expressions 12. Expressions: Internet | 13. Translations: Modern 14. Abbreviations 15. Acronyms 16. Derivations | 17. Rhymes 18. Anagrams 19. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.