The amount of time a computer's central processing unit (CPU) spends actively executing a program or instruction.
Compound word: CPU (Central Processing Unit, from computing terminology in the 1960s) + time (from Old English 'tima'). Emerged as a term with modern computing.
CPU time is different from 'wall clock time'—a program might take 1 hour of wall time but only 2 minutes of actual CPU time if it's waiting for input, which blew people's minds in early computing!
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