Program

How to spell program

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce program

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does program mean?

1. nounA set of coded instructions that tells a computer how to perform a task.
2. verbTo provide a computer or device with coded instructions, or to set it to operate in a particular way.
3. nounA planned series of events, activities, or items; a schedule or organised initiative.

Program in a sentence

• noun

  The new accounting program crashed every time she opened a large file.

• verb

  The engineers had to program the thermostat to lower the heat at night.

• noun

  The training program runs for six weeks at the downtown campus.

• noun

  He wrote a small program to sort the customer records automatically.

• verb

  She learned to program in Python during her evening course.

• noun

  The government launched a recycling program across the whole city.

Where does program come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek programma, which meant a public written notice or proclamation posted in a marketplace; it was built from pro- meaning 'before' or 'forth' and graphein meaning 'to write', so the literal idea was 'something written up in advance'. It passed into Late Latin as programma and then into French as programme, where it came to mean a printed list or outline of planned events. English adopted it in the 1600s, at first for any written schedule or agenda, and the meaning broadened over the centuries to cover plans, broadcasts, and eventually the coded instructions that run a computer. The American spelling 'program' simply kept the shorter Latin-style ending, while British writers later favoured the French-looking 'programme' for most senses; tellingly, even British usage settled on the shorter 'program' for the computing sense, which is why this spelling is standard across all dialects there. The shared 'gram' root, meaning 'written', also surfaces in telegram, diagram, and grammar, a handy reminder that the ending is -gram and not -grahm.

How the word is built

• pro- (before, forth)
• gram (something written, from Greek graphein 'to write')

British and American spelling

Program is the American spelling. British English spells it programme.