parse

[ pahrs, especially British, pahrz ]

verb (used with object)

, parsed, pars·ing.

1. to analyze (a sentence) in terms of grammatical constituents, identifying the parts of speech, syntactic relations, etc.
2. to describe (a word in a sentence) grammatically, identifying the part of speech, inflectional form, syntactic function, etc.
3. to analyze (something, as a speech or behavior) to discover its implications or uncover a deeper meaning:

   Political columnists were in their glory, parsing the president's speech on the economy in minute detail.

4. Computers. to analyze (a string of characters) in order to associate groups of characters with the syntactic units of the underlying grammar.

verb (used without object)

, parsed, pars·ing.

1. to be able to be parsed; lend itself to parsing:

   Sorry, but your concluding paragraph simply doesn't parse.

parse

/ pɑːz /

verb

1. to assign constituent structure to (a sentence or the words in a sentence)
2. intr (of a word or linguistic element) to play a specified role in the structure of a sentence
3. computing to analyse the source code of a computer program to make sure that it is structurally correct before it is compiled and turned into machine code

Derived Forms

• ˈparsable, adjective
• ˈparsing, noun

Other Words From

• pars·a·ble adjective
• pars·er noun
• mis·parse verb (used with object) misparsed misparsing
• un·parsed adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of parse¹

First recorded in 1545–55; from Latin pars “part,” as in pars ōrātiōnis “part of speech”

Word History and Origins

Origin of parse¹

C16: from Latin pars ( orātionis ) part (of speech)

Example Sentences

We could start by parsing the jokes, gags, and laugh-riots that the president-elect and his allies crassly dispensed in the final weeks of the race.

From Salon

The play, which centers on two ragtag characters waiting in vain for a man named Godot, delivers some of 20th century theater’s most closely parsed lines.

From Los Angeles Times

The Apple team found “catastrophic performance drops” by those models when they tried to parse simple mathematical problems written in essay form.

From Los Angeles Times

“I’m going to vote for Trump because I want a less tumultuous presidency? Really? Donald Trump. It just doesn’t parse,” Stevens said.

From Los Angeles Times

The difficulty in parsing exactly what the former president means also makes it hard to determine how literally to take him, even if his comments do inspire worry.

From Salon

Related Words

• audit
• check
• check out
• consider
• criticize
• delve into
• explore
• inspect
• investigate
• ponder
• pore over
• probe
• read
• research
• review
• scan
• screen
• scrutinize
• study
• survey