array

From Middle English arrayen, from Anglo-Norman arraier (compare Old French arraier, areer (“to put in order”)), from Medieval Latin arrēdō (“to put in order, arrange, array”), from Medieval Latin *rēdum (“preparation, order”), from Frankish *reida (“preparation, order”) or Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐍂𐌰𐌹𐌸𐍃 (garaiþs, “ready, prepared”), from Proto-Germanic *raidaz, *raidiz (“ready”), from Proto-Indo-European *reydʰ- (“to put in order, ease, make comfortable”). Cognate with Old High German gireiti (“preparation”), Old Frisian rēde (“ready”), Old English ġerǣde (“preparation, equipment”). More at ready.

• IPA^(key): /əˈɹeɪ/ (US) IPA^(key): /ˈæ.ɹɛ͡ɪ/ (UK)

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• Rhymes: -eɪ

array (countable and uncountable, plural arrays)

1. Clothing and ornamentation.
   • 2002, David L. Thompson, “River of Memories -An Appalachian Boyhood-”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), page 69:

     Upon leaving the center, I photographed the colorful array of petunias decorating the square in purple, pink, yellow, white, and magenta.

   • 2017, Anon., “Sovay”, in Roud # 7, Laws N21‎:

     Sovay, Sovay all on a day, She dressed herself in man's array, With a sword and a pistol all by her side, To meet her true love to meet her true love away did ride.

   • 1700, [John] Dryden, “Palamon and Arcite: Or, The Knight’s Tale. In Three Books.”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: Printed for Jacob Tonson, […], OCLC 228732415, book I, page 8:

     In this Remembrance Emily e’re day / Aroſe, and dreſs’d her ſelf in rich Array […]

2. A collection laid out to be viewed in full.
   • 1788 June, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, “Mr. Sheridan’s Speech, on Summing Up the Evidence on the Second, or Begum Charge against Warren Hastings, Esq., Delivered before the High Court of Parliament, June 1788”, in Select Speeches, Forensick and Parliamentary, with Prefatory Remarks by N[athaniel] Chapman, M.D., volume I, [Philadelphia, Pa.]: Published by Hopkins and Earle, no. 170, Market Street, published 1808, OCLC 230944105, page 474:

     The Begums' ministers, on the contrary, to extort from them the disclosure of the place which concealed the treasures, were, […] after being fettered and imprisoned, led out on to a scaffold, and this array of terrours proving unavailing, the meek tempered Middleton, as a dernier resort, menaced them with a confinement in the fortress of Chunargar. Thus, my lords, was a British garrison made the climax of cruelties!

3. An orderly series, arrangement or sequence.
   • Prescott

     a gallant array of nobles and cavaliers

4. Order; a regular and imposing arrangement; disposition in regular lines; hence, order of battle.

   drawn up in battle array

   • Gibbon

     wedged together in the closest array

5. A large collection.
   • Byron

     their long array of sapphire and of gold

   We offer a dazzling array of choices.

   • 2011 October 23, Phil McNulty, “Man Utd 1 - 6 Man City”, in BBC Sport‎:

     Mario Balotelli, in the headlines for accidentally setting his house ablaze with fireworks, put City on their way with goals either side of the interval as United struggled to contain the array of attacking talent in front of them.

6. (mathematics) Common name for matrix.
7. (programming) Any of various data structures designed to hold multiple elements of the same type; especially, a data structure that holds these elements in adjacent memory locations so that they may be retrieved using numeric indices.
8. (law) A ranking or setting forth in order, by the proper officer, of a jury as impanelled in a cause; the panel itself; or the whole body of jurors summoned to attend the court.
9. (military) A militia.
10. A group of hedgehogs.[1]
11. A microarray.

• (any of various data structures): The exact usage of the term array, and of related terms, generally depends on the programming language. For example, many languages distinguish a fairly low-level "array" construct from a higher-level "list" or "vector" construct. Some languages distinguish between an "array" and a variety of "associative array"; others have only the latter concept, calling it an "array".

• (orderly series): disarray

• (any of various data structures): ones-based indexing, zero-based indexing

array (third-person singular simple present arrays, present participle arraying, simple past and past participle arrayed)

1. To clothe and ornament; to adorn or attire.

   He was arrayed in his finest robes and jewels.

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Qveene. […], London: Printed [by John Wolfe] for VVilliam Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938, book II, canto IX, stanza 37, page 317:

     In a long purple pall, whose ſkirt with gold, / Was fretted all about, ſhe was arayd, […]

2. To lay out in an orderly arrangement; to deploy or marshal.
3. (law) To set in order, as a jury, for the trial of a cause; that is, to call them one at a time.
   • 1768, William Blackstone, “Of the Trial by Jury”, in Commentaries on the Laws of England, book III (Of Private Wrongs), Oxford: Printed at the Clarendon Press, OCLC 65350522, page 359:

     Alſo, though there be no perſonal objection againſt the ſheriff, yet if he arrays the panel at the nomination, or under the direction of either party, this is good cauſe of challenge to the array.

array m (plural arrays)

1. (programming) array (any of various data structures)

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