To release or free up computer memory or resources that were previously assigned to a program.
From de- (reverse or remove) plus allocate (from Latin ad- and locare, meaning 'to place'). Modern computer science term created in the 1950s-60s with the rise of programming.
Every time a computer program crashes, it might be because it forgot to deallocate memory—leaving 'orphaned' memory blocks that slow everything down, which is why programmers joke about memory leaks being the vampire of computer science.
Complete word intelligence in one call. Free tier — 50 lookups/day.