Compiling

How to spell compiling

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce compiling

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does compiling mean?

1. verbGathering pieces of information or material together to form a single organised work.
2. verbTranslating written source code into a form a computer can run.

Compiling in a sentence

• The team spent weeks compiling the annual sales report.

• The program kept failing while compiling because of a missing semicolon.

• She is compiling a list of suppliers for the new office.

• Compiling the whole project takes about two minutes on the new laptop.

Where does compiling come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb compilare, which literally meant 'to snatch together' or 'to plunder', formed from com- 'together' and pilare 'to press or pack down'. In its earliest Latin use it carried a slightly disreputable flavour, suggesting the act of heaping up other people's material, and that sense of gathering existing things into one place survives in the modern meaning. English took the word through Old French compiler in the 1300s, when it described assembling a written work from various sources. Over the centuries the plundering overtone faded and it became a neutral word for collecting and organising information. The most recent twist came in the twentieth century, when computer scientists applied it to programs that gather and translate source code; the spelling trap is simply that the silent 'e' of 'compile' is dropped before adding -ing.

How the word is built

• com- (together)
• pil (from Latin pilare: to pack or press together)
• -ing (present participle)