wizard
1. A person who knows how a complex piece of software or
hardware works (that is, who groks it); especially someone
who can find and fix bugs quickly in an emergency. Someone is
a hacker if he or she has general hacking ability, but is a
wizard with respect to something only if he or she has
specific detailed knowledge of that thing. A good hacker
could become a wizard for something given the time to study
it.
2. A person who is permitted to do things forbidden to
ordinary people; one who has wheel privileges on a system.
3. A Unix expert, especially a Unix systems programmer. This
usage is well enough established that "Unix Wizard" is a
recognised job title at some corporations and to most
headhunters.
See guru, lord high fixer. See also deep magic, heavy
wizardry, incantation, magic, mutter, rain dance,
voodoo programming, wave a dead chicken.
4. An interactive help utility that guides the user through a
potentially complex task, such as configuring a PPP driver
to work with a new modem. Wizards are often implemented as
a sequence of dialog boxes which the user can move forward
and backward through, filling in the details required. The
implication is that the expertise of a human wizard in one of
the above senses is encapsulated in the software wizard,
allowing the average user to perform expertly.
[Jargon File]
(1998-09-07)
Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03)
|
87 Moby Thesaurus words for "wizard":
Comus, Faust, OK, ace, ace-high, artist, authority, bad, bang-up,
bonzer, boss, bully, but good, conjurer, cool, corking,
crackerjack, dandy, delicious, diabolist, diviner, dowser, ducky,
enchanter, fab, fine and dandy, first-rater, gear, genius,
good hand, great, groovy, heavy, hot, hunky-dory, jam-up,
just dandy, keen, mage, magician, magus, mahatma, man of genius,
marvy, master, master hand, mastermind, mean, miracle-worker, neat,
necromancer, nifty, nobby, okay, out of sight, past master, peachy,
peachy-keen, practiced hand, prodigy, professional, proficient,
ripping, rum, sage, scrumptious, skilled hand, slap-up, smashing,
solid, something else, sorcerer, spiffing, spiffy, star, stunning,
superstar, swell, thaumaturge, thaumaturgist, theurgist,
topnotcher, tough, virtuoso, warlock, water witch, whiz
Source: Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
|
wizard
adj : possessing or using or characteristic of or appropriate to
supernatural powers; "charming incantations"; "magic
signs that protect against adverse influence"; "a
magical spell"; "'tis now the very witching time of
night"- Shakespeare; "wizard wands"; "wizardly powers"
[syn: charming, magic, magical, sorcerous, witching(a),
wizard(a), wizardly]
noun
1: someone who is dazzlingly skilled in any field [syn: ace,
adept, champion, sensation, maven, mavin, virtuoso,
genius, hotshot, star, superstar, whiz, whizz,
wiz]
2: one who practices magic or sorcery [syn: sorcerer, magician,
necromancer]
Source: WordNet (r) 2.0
|