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 the location of where a file or folder is being accessed.

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
  • Relative value

Use our Word and letter search tool to find all words containing relative or any other word.

  • How can I find people online?
  • How to find a file on a computer.