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1. Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
amperage, armipotence, authority, beef, big battalions, black power, charge, charisma, clout, cogence, cogency, compulsion, dint, drive, duress, effect, effectiveness, effectuality, energy, flower power, force, force majeure, forcefulness, full blast, full force, influence, main force, main strength, mana, might, might and main, mightiness, moxie, muscle power, naked force, physical force, pizzazz, poop, potence, potency, potentiality, power, power pack, power structure, power struggle, powerfulness, prepotency, productiveness, productivity, puissance, pull, punch, push, rule of might, sinew, steam, steamroller, strength, strong arm, superiority, superpower, tyranny, ultima ratio, validity, vehemence, vigor, vim, virility, virtue, virulence, vitality, wattage, weight
Dictionary Results for brute force:
1. The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Brute \Brute\, a. [F. brut, nasc., brute, fem., raw, rough,
   rude, brutish, L. brutus stupid, irrational: cf. It. & Sp.
   bruto.]
   1. Not having sensation; senseless; inanimate; unconscious;
      without intelligence or volition; as, the brute earth; the
      brute powers of nature.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. Not possessing reason, irrational; unthinking; as, a brute
      beast; the brute creation.
      [1913 Webster]

            A creature . . . not prone
            And brute as other creatures, but endued
            With sanctity of reason.              --Milton.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of, a brute beast.
      Hence: Brutal; cruel; fierce; ferocious; savage; pitiless;
      as, brute violence. --Macaulay.
      [1913 Webster]

            The influence of capital and mere brute labor.
                                                  --Playfair.
      [1913 Webster]

   4. Having the physical powers predominating over the mental;
      coarse; unpolished; unintelligent.
      [1913 Webster]

            A great brute farmer from Liddesdale. --Sir W.
                                                  Scott.
      [1913 Webster]

   5. Rough; uncivilized; unfeeling. [R.]
      [1913 Webster]

   brute force, The application of predominantly physical
      effort to achieve a goal that could be accomplished with
      less effort if more carefully considered. Figuratively,
      repetitive or strenuous application of an obvious or
      simple tactic, as contrasted with a more clever stratagem
      achieving the same goal with less effort; -- as, the first
      prime numbers were discovered by the brute force
      repetition of the Sieve of Eratosthenes.
      [PJC]

2. The Jargon File (version 4.4.7, 29 Dec 2003)
brute force
 adj.

    Describes a primitive programming style, one in which the programmer relies
    on the computer's processing power instead of using his or her own
    intelligence to simplify the problem, often ignoring problems of scale and
    applying naive methods suited to small problems directly to large ones. The
    term can also be used in reference to programming style: brute-force
    programs are written in a heavyhanded, tedious way, full of repetition and
    devoid of any elegance or useful abstraction (see also brute force and
    ignorance).

    The canonical example of a brute-force algorithm is associated with the
    ?traveling salesman problem? (TSP), a classical NP-hard problem: Suppose
    a person is in, say, Boston, and wishes to drive to N other cities. In what
    order should the cities be visited in order to minimize the distance
    travelled? The brute-force method is to simply generate all possible routes
    and compare the distances; while guaranteed to work and simple to
    implement, this algorithm is clearly very stupid in that it considers even
    obviously absurd routes (like going from Boston to Houston via San
    Francisco and New York, in that order). For very small N it works well, but
    it rapidly becomes absurdly inefficient when N increases (for N = 15, there
    are already 1,307,674,368,000 possible routes to consider, and for N = 1000
    ? well, see bignum). Sometimes, unfortunately, there is no better general
    solution than brute force. See also NP- and rubber-hose cryptanalysis.

    A more simple-minded example of brute-force programming is finding the
    smallest number in a large list by first using an existing program to sort
    the list in ascending order, and then picking the first number off the
    front.

    Whether brute-force programming should actually be considered stupid or not
    depends on the context; if the problem is not terribly big, the extra CPU
    time spent on a brute-force solution may cost less than the programmer time
    it would take to develop a more ?intelligent? algorithm. Additionally, a
    more intelligent algorithm may imply more long-term complexity cost and
    bug-chasing than are justified by the speed improvement.

    Ken Thompson, co-inventor of Unix, is reported to have uttered the epigram
    ?When in doubt, use brute force?. He probably intended this as a ha ha
    only serious, but the original Unix kernel's preference for simple,
    robust, and portable algorithms over brittle ?smart? ones does seem to
    have been a significant factor in the success of that OS. Like so many
    other tradeoffs in software design, the choice between brute force and
    complex, finely-tuned cleverness is often a difficult one that requires
    both engineering savvy and delicate esthetic judgment.


3. The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018)
brute force

    A primitive programming style in which the
   programmer relies on the computer's processing power instead
   of using his own intelligence to simplify the problem, often
   ignoring problems of scale and applying naive methods suited
   to small problems directly to large ones.  The term can also
   be used in reference to programming style: brute-force
   programs are written in a heavy-handed, tedious way, full of
   repetition and devoid of any elegance or useful abstraction
   (see also brute force and ignorance).

   The canonical example of a brute-force algorithm is
   associated with the "travelling salesman problem" (TSP), a
   classical NP-hard problem:

   Suppose a person is in, say, Boston, and wishes to drive to N
   other cities.  In what order should the cities be visited in
   order to minimise the distance travelled?

   The brute-force method is to simply generate all possible
   routes and compare the distances; while guaranteed to work and
   simple to implement, this algorithm is clearly very stupid in
   that it considers even obviously absurd routes (like going
   from Boston to Houston via San Francisco and New York, in that
   order).  For very small N it works well, but it rapidly
   becomes absurdly inefficient when N increases (for N = 15,
   there are already 1,307,674,368,000 possible routes to
   consider, and for N = 1000 - well, see bignum).  Sometimes,
   unfortunately, there is no better general solution than brute
   force.  See also NP-complete.

   A more simple-minded example of brute-force programming is
   finding the smallest number in a large list by first using an
   existing program to sort the list in ascending order, and then
   picking the first number off the front.

   Whether brute-force programming should actually be considered
   stupid or not depends on the context; if the problem is not
   terribly big, the extra CPU time spent on a brute-force
   solution may cost less than the programmer time it would take
   to develop a more "intelligent" algorithm.  Additionally, a
   more intelligent algorithm may imply more long-term complexity
   cost and bug-chasing than are justified by the speed
   improvement.

   When applied to cryptography, it is usually known as brute
   force attack.

   Ken Thompson, co-inventor of Unix, is reported to have
   uttered the epigram "When in doubt, use brute force".  He
   probably intended this as a ha ha only serious, but the
   original Unix kernel's preference for simple, robust and
   portable algorithms over brittle "smart" ones does seem to
   have been a significant factor in the success of that
   operating system.  Like so many other tradeoffs in software
   design, the choice between brute force and complex,
   finely-tuned cleverness is often a difficult one that requires
   both engineering savvy and delicate aesthetic judgment.

   [Jargon File]

   (1995-02-14)


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