What does DIM stand for in Visual Basic and BASIC?

basic, language-design, vb6

Solution

Dim originally (in BASIC) stood for Dimension, as it was used to define the dimensions of an array.

(The original implementation of BASIC was Dartmouth BASIC, which descended from FORTRAN, where DIMENSION is spelled out.)

Nowadays, Dim is used to define any variable, not just arrays, so its meaning is not intuitive anymore.

Problem

What does `Dim` stand for in Visual Basic?

Original source