"A set of defined procedures for carrying out a task in a step-by-step manner". -- (Oxford English: A Guide to the Language compiled by I.C.B.Dear).
"Named in honour of Mohammed ibn Musa al-Khuwarizmi, a ninth-century Arab mathematician whose second book gave us the word algebra (from the Arabic Al-jabr). It is now used to describe any mathematical procedure that can be completed by some automatic, mechanistic means, without the need for any human imagination or creativity". --Benjamin Woolley (in Virtual Worlds , 1992).