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Data refers to a collection of facts usually collected as the result of experience, observation or experiment, or processes within a computer system, or a set of premises. This may consist of numbers, words, or images, particularly as measurements or observations of a set of variables. Data is often viewed as a lowest level of abstraction from which information and knowledge are derived.

The word data (pronounced /'de?t?/, /'dæt?/, or /'d??t?/) is the Latin plural of datum, neuter past participle of dare, "to give", hence "something given". The past participle of "to give" has been used for millennia, in the sense of a statement accepted at face value; one of the works of Euclid, circa 300 BC, was the Dedomena (in Latin, Data). In discussions of problems in geometry, mathematics, engineering, and so on, the terms givens and data are used interchangeably. Such usage is the origin of data as a concept in computer science data are numbers, words, images, etc., accepted as they stand.

In English, the word datum is still used in the general sense of "something given". In cartography, geography, NMR and technical drawing it is often used to refer to a single specific reference datum from which distances to all other data are measured. Any measurement or result is a datum, but data point is more common^[1], albeit tautological. Both datums (see usage in datum article) and the originally Latin plural data are used as the plural of datum in English, but data is more commonly treated as a mass noun and used in the singular, especially in day-to-day usage. For example, "This is all the data from the experiment". This usage is inconsistent with the rules of Latin grammar and traditional English^{[citation needed]}, which would instead suggest "These are all the data from the experiment". Some British and UN academic, scientific, and professional style guides (e.g., see page 43 of the World Health Organization Style Guide) request that authors treat data as a plural noun. Other international organization, such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Computer Society ^[2], allow its usage as either a mass noun or plural based on author preference. It is now usually treated as a singular mass noun in informal usage, but usage in scientific publications shows a strong divide between the United States and United Kingdom. Usage in the United States tends to treat data in the singular, including in serious and academic publishing, although some major newspapers (such as the New York Times) regularly use it in the plural. "The plural usage is still common, as this headline from the New York Times attests “Data Are Elusive on the Homeless”. Sometimes scientists use data as plural, as in These data do not support the conclusions. Often scientists and researchers think of data as a singular mass entity like information, and most people now follow this in general usage."^[3] UK usage now widely accepts treating data as singular in standard English^[4], including everyday newspaper usage^[5] at least in non-scientific use.^[6] UK scientific publishing usually still prefers treating it as a plural.^[7]. Some UK university style guides recommend using data for both singular and plural use^[8] and some recommend treating it only as a singular in connection with computers.^[9]

Mechanical computing devices are classified according to the means by which they represent data. An analog computer represents a datum as a voltage, distance, position, or other physical quantity. A digital computer represents a datum as a sequence of symbols drawn from a fixed alphabet. The most common digital computers use a binary alphabet, that is, an alphabet of two characters, typically denoted "0" and "1". More familiar representations, such as numbers or letters, are then constructed from the binary alphabet.

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