'Computer' meant 'a person who calculates' for 300 years before it ever meant a machine.
An electronic device for storing and processing data according to instructions given to it in a program.
From 'compute' + '-er' (agent suffix). 'Compute' from Latin 'computāre' (to reckon together, to calculate, to sum up), a compound of 'com-' (together, with) + 'putāre' (to reckon, to count, to think, originally 'to prune, to cleanse, to clear'). The PIE root behind 'putāre' is *pewH- (to cut, to prune, to cleanse), reflecting the ancient connection between clearing and counting. 'Computer' entered English in the 1640s denoting a human calculator — a person employed to perform mathematical computations by
'Computer,' 'dispute,' 'reputation,' 'deputy,' and 'amputate' all come from Latin 'putāre' — originally meaning 'to prune.' A computer prunes numbers into results; a dispute is a pruning-apart of ideas; a reputation is what is reckoned after pruning the evidence; and amputate is to prune off a limb. The pruning metaphor became the thinking metaphor.