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Cloud vs Virtual - What's the difference?

cloud | virtual |

As a proper noun cloud

is .

As an adjective virtual is

in effect or essence, if not in fact or reality; imitated, simulated.

As a noun virtual is

(computing) in c++, a virtual member function of a class.

cloud

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • (obsolete) A rock; boulder; a hill.
  • A visible mass of water droplets suspended in the air.
  • *
  • *:So this was my future home, I thought!Backed by towering hills, the but faintly discernible purple line of the French boundary off to the southwest, a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds , it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.
  • Any mass of dust, steam or smoke resembling such a mass.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-29, volume=407, issue=8842, page=29, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Unspontaneous combustion , passage=Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia. The cheapest way to clear logged woodland is to burn it, producing an acrid cloud of foul white smoke that, carried by the wind, can cover hundreds, or even thousands, of square miles.}}
  • Anything which makes things foggy or gloomy.
  • A group or swarm, especially suspended above the ground or flying.
  • :
  • *(Bible), (w) xii. 1
  • *:so great a cloud of witnesses
  • An elliptical shape or symbol whose outline is a series of semicircles, supposed to resemble a cloud.
  • :
  • The Internet, regarded as an amorphous omnipresent space for processing and storage, the focus of cloud computing.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-14, author=(Jonathan Freedland)
  • , volume=189, issue=1, page=18, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Obama's once hip brand is now tainted , passage=Now we are liberal with our innermost secrets, spraying them into the public ether with a generosity our forebears could not have imagined. Where we once sent love letters in a sealed envelope, or stuck photographs of our children in a family album, now such private material is despatched to servers and clouds operated by people we don't know and will never meet.}}
  • (figuratively) A negative aspect of something positive: see every cloud has a silver lining or every silver lining has a cloud.
  • *{{quote-news, year=2011, date=January 25, author=Phil McNulty, work=BBC
  • , title= Blackpool 2-3 Man Utd , passage=The only cloud on their night was that injury to Rafael, who was followed off the pitch by his anxious brother Fabio as he was stretchered away down the tunnel.}}
  • (slang) Crystal methamphetamine.
  • A large, loosely-knitted headscarf worn by women.
  • Hyponyms

    * See also

    Derived terms

    * anvil cloud * brain cloud * cloud bank * cloud base * cloudburst * cloud chamber * cloud computing * cloud cover * cloud mass * cloud nine * cloud number nine * cloud on title * cloud storage * cloud street * cloudish * cloudless adj * cloudlet noun * cloudlike * cloudling * cloudly * cloudy adj. * every cloud has a silver lining * funnel cloud * have one’s head in the clouds * Magellanic Cloud * mammatus cloud * molecular cloud * mushroom cloud * Oort cloud * point cloud * rain cloud * star cloud * tag cloud * thundercloud

    See also

    * (wikipedia "cloud") * (commonslite) *

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To become foggy or gloomy, to become obscured from sight.
  • The glass clouds when you breathe on it.
  • To overspread or hide with a cloud or clouds.
  • The sky is clouded .
  • To make obscure.
  • All this talk about human rights is clouding the real issue.
  • To make gloomy or sullen.
  • * Shakespeare
  • One day too late, I fear me, noble lord, / Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth.
  • * Milton
  • Be not disheartened, then, nor cloud those looks.
  • To blacken; to sully; to stain; to tarnish (reputation or character).
  • * Shakespeare
  • I would not be a stander-by to hear / My sovereign mistress clouded so, without / My present vengeance taken.
  • To mark with, or darken in, veins or sports; to variegate with colours.
  • to cloud yarn
  • * Alexander Pope
  • the nice conduct of a clouded cane

    virtual

    Alternative forms

    * vertual (obsolete) * vertuall (qualifier) * virtuall (obsolete)

    Adjective

    (-)
  • In effect or essence, if not in fact or reality; imitated, simulated.
  • In fact a defeat on the battlefield, Tet was a virtual victory for the North, owing to its effect on public opinion.
    Virtual addressing allows applications to believe that there is much more physical memory than actually exists.
  • * Fleming
  • A thing has a virtual existence when it has all the conditions necessary to its actual existence.
  • * De Quincey
  • to mask by slight differences in the manners a virtual identity in the substance
  • Having the power of acting or of invisible efficacy without the agency of the material or measurable part; potential.
  • * Francis Bacon
  • Heat and cold have a virtual transition, without communication of substance.
  • * Milton
  • Every kind that lives, / Fomented by his virtual power, and warmed.
  • Nearly, almost. (A relatively recent corruption of meaning, attributed to misuse in advertising and media. )
  • The angry peasants were a virtual army as they attacked the castle.
  • * 2012 , Chelsea 6-0 Wolves [http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/19632463]
  • The Chelsea captain was a virtual spectator as he was treated to his side's biggest win for almost two years as Stamford Bridge serenaded him with chants of "there's only one England captain," some 48 hours after he announced his retirement from international football.
  • Simulated in a computer or online.
  • The virtual world of his computer game allowed character interaction.
  • Operating by computer or in cyberspace; not physically present.
  • a virtual''' assistant; a '''virtual personal trainer
  • (computing, object-oriented programming, of a class member) Capable of being overridden with a different implementation in a subclass.
  • (physics) Pertaining to particles in temporary existence due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.
  • Synonyms

    * de facto

    Antonyms

    * de jure * legal * real

    Derived terms

    * virtual reality * virtually

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (computing) In C++, a virtual member function of a class.
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