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In logic and computer programming, a conjunction of two logical statements is said to be true if and only if both statements are themselves true. For instance:

"The sky is blue" and "the grass is green"

is a conjunction of two logical statements. Note that a conjunction in this context is not the same as a grammatical conjunction.

In product manuals, one often sees things like:

"These values are anded together". However, "anded" doesn't seem like a proper English term, and it seems like there should be a verb for the act of combining two logical statements with a conjunction. Other logical operators like "xor" certainly use "xored" or "xor'd", but "anded" seems less acceptable somehow.

Is there a nice English word for this operation? Some thoughts:

  • "conjoined" doesn't seem sufficiently precise, because we're not just sticking the logical statements together, we're combining them with a particular operator (i.e. the clauses could still be conjoined with a disjunction operator instead).

  • "conjuncted" might be appropriate, but I can't find anyone using it on the net, and I've never seen it used before in manuals and the like.

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    Cockneys have been using the verb form 'anded for many years.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Aug 12, 2014 at 22:13
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    True is 1 ; false is 0 ; the word you're looking for is "multiplied".
    – Dan Bron
    Aug 12, 2014 at 22:26
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    If the operator is a disjunction, surely the statements would be disjoined, rather than conjoined? Conjunction, after all, is simply an abstract noun formed from the participle of conjoin.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Aug 12, 2014 at 22:26
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    You're looking for a word that applies to math-logic that is "nice" but is understood by a general audience who doesn't understand "anded" but might think of conjoined as a word not having to do with twin babies and conjunctive that doesn't sound like conjunctivitis. The books that talk about AND say, "[check] if all conditions are true" and that's all that needs to be said. Meanwhile apply OR and "any condition is true". No weird term needed. but ANDed or ORed makes more sense than anded or ored.
    – SrJoven
    Aug 13, 2014 at 12:55
  • Not a verb, and not bitwise correct, but how about "additive"?
    – xr280xr
    Jan 18, 2022 at 4:34

4 Answers 4

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Logically speaking, the verb conjoin really should be acceptable. A conjunction is the act or product of conjoining. It's the same stem, so if one form is deemed sufficiently precise to refer to the operation, why shouldn't the other be? The counterpart, for "or-ing", would be disjoin. Conjunction has a more specific meaning in propositional logic than in general and grammatical usage. Under the logic that two statements could be "conjoined" with the OR operator, all disjunctions would also be conjunctions. That's obviously not a very useful sense in context.

To clarify to readers the fact that you're using the word in a context-specific way, the first time you use this verb, simply follow it with "(i.e. join with AND)" or "(as opposed to disjoin)". If you're going to use the verb that way repeatedly in a longer text, you might briefly but explicitly explain in a footnote instead. Given how infrequently we use conjoin in general language, I don't think this overloading of terminology would be likely to cause ongoing confusion. (It's not as if it will be mixed with uses of that verb in its everyday sense.)

Personally, I think "conjuncted" just sounds influent.

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Why reinvent the wheel? The manual's target audience understands what an AND operation is, so it makes more sense to say "The values are ANDed together" than "A logical Boolean operation is performed on the values".

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  • This depends on the audience. While I agree that writing a manual aimed at a computer programmer or engineer, one could get by fine with "anded", writing one aimed at a more general audience may require a different word. This is the use case I'm concerned with.
    – John Doucette
    Aug 12, 2014 at 22:58
  • For a general audience, this would imply a definition/explanation of the And operator. And (no pun intended) you can't define/explain And in one word.
    – Mark Raishbrook
    Aug 12, 2014 at 23:20
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You don't necessarily need a verb. Conjunct and conjunctive are both adjectives for this.

Instead of:

These values are anded together.

Try:

These values are conjunct.

or

These values are conjunctive.

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Why not to combine ? (as suggested by Wiktionary.)

And:

  • (logic, transitive) To combine (a value) with another value by means of this operator.

    • 2006, Gary R Wright, W Richard Stevens, The Implementation If an internal node is encountered that contains a mask, the search key is logically ANDed with the mask and another search is made of the subtree..
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