code

American  

[kohd] / koʊd /

noun

1. a system for communication by telegraph, heliograph, etc., in which long and short sounds, light flashes, etc., are used to symbolize the content of a message.

   Morse code.

2. a system used for brevity or secrecy of communication, in which arbitrarily chosen words, letters, or symbols are assigned definite meanings.

3. indirect wording that is euphemistic, deceptive, or opaque.

   The firm says its testing methodology is “proprietary”—which some believe is code for “hidden from scrutiny.”

4. any set of standards set forth and enforced by a local government agency for the protection of public safety, health, etc., as in the structural safety of buildings building code, health requirements for plumbing, ventilation, etc. sanitary code or health code, and the specifications for fire escapes or exits fire code.

5. a systematically arranged collection or compendium of laws, rules, or regulations.

6. any authoritative, general, systematic, and written statement of the legal rules and principles applicable in a given legal order to one or more broad areas of life.

7. a word, letter, number, or other symbol used in a code system to mark, represent, or identify something.

   The code on the label shows the date of manufacture.

8. Computers.

   1. a set of symbols that can be interpreted by a computer or piece of software: Java code;

      binary code;

      Java code;

      ASCII code.

   2. the symbolic arrangement of statements or instructions in a computer program, or the set of instructions in such a program.

      That program took 3000 lines of code.

9. any system or collection of rules and regulations.

   a gentleman's code of behavior.

10. Medicine/Medical.  a directive or alert to a hospital team assigned to emergency resuscitation of patients.

11. Genetics.  genetic code.

12. Linguistics.

    1. the system of rules shared by the participants in an act of communication, making possible the transmission and interpretation of messages.

    2. (in sociolinguistic theory) one of two distinct styles of language use that differ in degree of explicitness and are sometimes thought to be correlated with differences in social class.

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verb (used with object)

coded, coding

1. to translate (a message) into a code; encode.

2. to categorize or identify by assigning a code to.

   All specimens were coded prior to the test.

3. to arrange or enter (laws or statutes) in a code.

4. Computers.  to write code for (a computer program or application) (often followed byup ).

   Hire a programmer to code up a website for you.

verb (used without object)

coded, coding

1. Genetics.  to specify the amino acid sequence of a protein by the sequence of nucleotides comprising the gene for that protein.

   a gene that codes for the production of insulin.

2. Computers.  to write computer code.

code British  

/ kəʊd /

noun

1. a system of letters or symbols, and rules for their association by means of which information can be represented or communicated for reasons of secrecy, brevity, etc See also genetic code

   binary code

   Morse code

2. a message in code

3. a symbol used in a code

4. a conventionalized set of principles, rules, or expectations

   a code of behaviour

5. a system of letters or digits used for identification or selection purposes

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verb

1. to translate, transmit, or arrange into a code

code Scientific  

/ kōd /

1. A system of signals used to represent letters or numbers in transmitting messages.

2. The instructions in a computer program. Instructions written by a programmer in a programming language are often called source code. Instructions that have been converted into machine language that the computer understands are called machine code or executable code.

3. See also programming language

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code Cultural  

1. A series of instructions designed to be fed into a computer.

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Other Word Forms

• codeless adjective
• coder noun
• precode verb (used with object)
• recode verb (used with object)
• subcode noun

Etymology

Origin of code

First recorded in 1275–1325; Middle English, from Anglo-French, Old French, from Latin cōdex “book”; codex

Example Sentences

Silicon Valley insiders have started calling Cursor, the AI coding tool, the fastest-growing product of all time.

From The Wall Street Journal

UN3439 was much harder to identify because it is an umbrella code for a whole range of industrial chemicals, all of which are hazardous.

From BBC

Meanwhile, Collins Dictionary went for vibe coding, which is the art of making an app or website by describing it to artificial intelligence rather than by writing programming code manually.

From BBC

The government says it will focus on tax, labor and penal code reforms in the coming extraordinary session of Congress.

From The Wall Street Journal

He devised a code to record every letter he received, with each letter writer identified by initials and the last two numbers of their ZIP Code.

From The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• constitution
• convention
• custom
• discipline
• laws
• regulation
• rules
• system