TITLE: Use of the word "solve"?
QUESTION [8 upvotes]: This is not a mathematical question, but just a matter of terminology.
I don't understand why so many people (especially on MSE) want to solve integrals. It makes sense for me (linguistically speaking) to solve an equation or to solve a problem, but definitely not to solve an integral: instead, I would just say compute.
So, I would like to know if "to solve an integral" is correct English. Needless to say, English is not my native language...

REPLY [16 votes]: It is wrong in English to say "solve an integral". We should say "evaluate an integral" or "compute an integral" instead.