(From "dimenSIon") A keyword in most verSIons of the BASIC programming language that declares the SIze of an array. E.g. DIM A(100) declares a one-dimenSIonal array with 101 numeric elements (including A(0)). Visual BaSIc uses the DIM (or "Dim") statement for any variable declaration, even scalars, e.g. Dim DepartmentNumber As Integer which declares a SIngle (scalar) variable of type Integer. (1999-03-26)