Compiler

How to spell compiler

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce compiler

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does compiler mean?

1. nounA program that translates source code written in one programming language into machine code or another language.
2. nounA person who gathers material from various sources to produce a collection, list, or reference work.

Compiler in a sentence

• The compiler flagged a syntax error on line forty.

• The compiler of the dictionary spent years collecting quotations.

• A faster compiler reduced the build time considerably.

• As compiler of the anthology, she chose poems from many decades.

Where does compiler come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin verb compilare, which literally meant 'to plunder' or 'to heap up', formed from com- 'together' and pilare 'to press or stuff'. By medieval times the sense had softened to 'gathering material together from various sources', and it passed into English through Old French compiler in the 1300s, giving us the verb 'compile' for assembling a book or collection from existing writings. The agent noun 'compiler' for a person who puts such a collection together followed naturally. In the twentieth century the word was borrowed into computing for a program that gathers and translates source code into machine instructions, a sense first used in the 1950s. The spelling trap is the unstressed 'com-' opening and the agent ending '-er' rather than '-or', which writers sometimes second-guess by analogy with words like 'editor' or 'translator'.

How the word is built

• com- (together)
• pil (from Latin pilare, to press or heap up)
• -er (agent: one that does)