shannon
shannon Lexical Profile
• noun
A common given name of Irish origin, historically used for males but predominantly used for females in modern North American contexts.
"Shannon presented her research findings on quantum computing at the international engineering conference."
Irish The longest river in Ireland, flowing generally southward from County Cavan to its estuary on the Atlantic Ocean, dividing the west of Ireland from the east and south.
"During their summer holiday, the family rented a boat to navigate the scenic waters of the Shannon."
A unit of information and entropy in information theory, equivalent to the information content of an event with a probability of one-half; practically synonymous with a bit.
"The channel capacity can be measured in shannons per second to determine the maximum rate of error-free data transmission."
• Rhymes for shannon
Word Origin & Etymology
Derived from the Irish river name 'Sionainn', which is traditionally thought to mean 'old river' or 'wise river' (from Old Irish 'sen' meaning 'old'). The unit of information was named in honor of Claude Shannon, the American mathematician and electrical engineer recognized as the founder of information theory.