Vulcan

[vuhl-kuh n] /ˈvʌl kən/
noun
1.
the ancient Roman god of fire and metalworking, identified with the Greek Hephaestus.
2.
Military. a six-barrel, 20mm U.S. Army antiaircraft gun system mounted on an armored personnel carrier and first deployed in 1968.
3.
Astronomy. a hypothetical planet nearest the sun whose existence was erroneously postulated to account for perturbations in Mercury's orbit.
Origin
1505-15; < Latin Vulcānus
British Dictionary definitions for Vulcan

Vulcan1

/ˈvʌlkən/
noun
1.
the Roman god of fire and metalworking Greek counterpart Hephaestus
Derived Forms
Vulcanian (vʌlˈkeɪnɪən) adjective

Vulcan2

/ˈvʌlkən/
noun
1.
a hypothetical planet once thought to lie within the orbit of Mercury
Derived Forms
Vulcanian (vʌlˈkeɪnɪən) adjective
Word Origin and History for Vulcan
n.

god of fire and metal-work in Roman mythology, 1510s, from Latin Vulcanus, a word of Etruscan origin. Often with allusions to his lameness and the unfaithfulness of his wife, Venus. As the name of a hypothetical planet between Mercury and the Sun, it is attested from 1870. The Roman feast of Vulcanalia was on Aug. 23.

Vulcan in Culture
Vulcan

[Greek name Hephaestus]

The Roman and Greek god of fire and metalworking; the blacksmith of the gods. He suffered bodily deformities and lameness. According to some stories, he was married to Venus, the goddess of love and beauty; in other stories, he was married to one of the three Graces. Vulcan was a son of Jupiter.

Vulcan in Technology

1. A version of JPLDIS ported to CP/M by Wayne Ratliff around 1980. VULCAN evolved into dBASE II.
2. The dBASE-like interpreter and compiler sold by RSPI with their Emerald Bay product. [Same as 1?]
3. An early string manipulation language.
["VULCAN - A String Handling Language with Dynamic Storage Control", E.P. Storm et al, Proc FJCC 37, AFIPS, Fall 1970].
4. A concurrent object-oriented logic programming language implemented as a preprocessor for FCP by Kahn et al at Xerox PARC.
["Vulcan: Logical Concurrent Objects", K. Kahn et al in Research Directions in Object- Oriented Programming, A.B. Shriver et al eds, MIT Press 1987].
(2004-09-01)