among mathematicians, a term for such things or quantities as are given or known, in order to find other things thereby that are unknown. Euclid uses the word data (of which he hath a particular tract) for such spaces, lines, and angles as are given in magnitude, or to which we can assign others equal.

From the primary use of the word data in mathematics, it has been transplanted into other arts; as philosophy, medicine, &c., where it expresses any quantity, which, for the sake of a perfect calculation, is taken for granted to be such, without requiring an immediate proof for its certainty; called also the given quantity, number, or power. And hence also such things as are known, from whence either in natural philosophy, the animal mechanism, or the operation of medicines, we come to the knowledge of others unknown, are now frequently in physical writers called data.