Etymology

gnome sort

Today it means: A variation of the insertion sort that does not use nested loops. Full definition →

Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

Named by Dutch computer scientist Dick Grune, based on a metaphor of a gnome walking along a line of flowerpots in order to sort them.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.