Encoding

How to spell encoding

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce encoding

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does encoding mean?

1. nounThe process or result of converting information into a particular system of symbols, characters, or digital format.
2. verbConverting information or a message into a coded form, as an ongoing action.

Encoding in a sentence

• noun

  The file opened as gibberish because the text encoding was set incorrectly.

• verb

  The software is encoding the video into a smaller file for streaming.

• noun

  Choosing the right character encoding prevents accented letters from breaking on the web page.

• verb

  The team spent the afternoon encoding each survey answer as a numeric value.

Where does encoding come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word is built from the verb 'encode', which joins the prefix 'en-', meaning 'to put into' or 'to cause to be', with the noun 'code'. 'Code' itself traces back to the Latin codex, originally a block of wood, then the wooden tablets coated in wax that the Romans wrote on, and eventually a bound book of laws or systematic rules. By the time English adopted 'code' through Old French, it carried the sense of a structured system of signs or rules. 'Encode' and its noun 'encoding' are comparatively modern formations, gaining wide use in the twentieth century alongside telegraphy, cryptography, and computing, where information is converted into a formal system of symbols. The spelling stays regular: keep the single 'c' from 'code', drop nothing, and simply add '-ing', so the main trap is resisting the urge to double a consonant that was never doubled.

How the word is built

• en- (to put into)
• code (from Latin codex: a system of symbols)
• -ing (noun/verb suffix)