Algorithm
The word 'algorithm' has its roots in Latinizing the name of Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi in a first step to "algorismus". Al-Khwārizmī (, , c. 780–850) was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, geographer, and scholar in the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, whose name means 'the native of Khwarezm', a region that was part of Greater Iran and is now in Uzbekistan.
Algorithm characterizations
A careful reading of Gurevich 2000 leads one to conclude (infer?) that he believes that "an algorithm" is actually "a Turing machine" or "a pointer machine" doing a computation. An "algorithm" is not just the symbol-table that guides the behavior of the machine, nor is it just one instance of a machine doing a computation given a particular set of input parameters, nor is it a suitably programmed machine with the power off; rather "an algorithm is the machine actually doing any computation of which it is capable". Gurevich does not come right out and say this, so as worded above this conclusion (inference?) is certainly open to debate: