Macro

How to spell macro

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce macro

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does macro mean?

1. nounA single saved command or rule that automatically runs a longer sequence of instructions in software.
2. adjectiveRelating to the large scale or the overall picture rather than fine detail.

Macro in a sentence

• noun

  She recorded a macro to format the monthly report with one keystroke.

• adjective

  At the macro level, the company tracks national spending rather than individual sales.

• noun

  The spreadsheet ran a macro that copied data across every sheet.

• adjective

  The report takes a macro view of the economy before drilling into local figures.

Where does macro come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word is a modern clipping of the combining form macro-, which English took from the Greek makros, meaning 'long' or 'large'. The Greek sense covered great length in space or time, and scholars adopted it to coin scientific compounds such as macrocosm (the great world) and macroscopic (large enough to see). In computing, the noun emerged in the mid twentieth century as a short form of 'macroinstruction', a single named command that automatically expands into a whole sequence of smaller operations, hence something 'large' standing in for many small steps. The opposite combining form is micro-, from Greek mikros 'small', and the two are natural partners in pairs like macroeconomics and microeconomics. Because the spelling simply carries the Greek root straight through, the only thing to watch is the single c and the unstressed final o.

How the word is built

• macro- (from Greek makros: long, large), here used as a standalone clipped word