Relative

In general, relative describes anything related to something else. For example, a family relative is someone connected to you by blood or marriage.

With computers, relative describes anything related to data or the location where you're currently browsing on a computer. For example, when dealing with a file, a relative path is the path to that file from your current location. For example, the absolute path to this page is "https://www.computerhope.com/jargon/r/relative.htm," but in the "jargon" directory, the relative path is "/r/relative.htm." In other words, the relative path is related to where a file or folder is being accessed.

Relative computer-related terms

Below are terms containing "relative" to give other examples of how this word is used with computers.

• Relative address
• Relative cell
• Relative coordinates
• Relative link
• Relative location
• Relative path
• Relative reference
• Relative row
• Relative URL (uniform resource locator)
• Relative value