An arithmetic operation performed on data stored in floating-point notation. Floating-point operations are used wherever numbers may have either fractional or irrational parts, as in spreadsheets and computer-aided design (CAD). Therefore, one measure of a computer’s power is how many millions of floating-point operations per second (MFLOPS or megaflops) it can perform. Acronym: FLOP. Also called: floating-point operation. See also floating-point notation, MFLOPS.
An arithmetic operation performed on floating-point numbers; SYN. flop.