(n) (computer science) the format of sectors on the surface of a hard disk drive so that the operating system can access them and setting a starting position, Syn. initialisation, initialization
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English (GCIDE) v.0.53 Collaborative International Dictionary (GCIDE)
v. t. to assign an initial value to (a variable or set of variables in a computer program); as, many bugs are caused by a failure to initialize variables. [ WordNet 1.5 ]