Programmer

How to spell programmer

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce programmer

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does programmer mean?

1. nounA person who writes the coded instructions that make computer software work.

Programmer in a sentence

• The startup hired another programmer to speed up the new release.

• As a self-taught programmer, she debugged the payment system overnight.

Where does programmer come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word grows out of 'program', which English assembled from the Greek programma, meaning 'a written public notice' or 'something set down in advance'. That Greek noun came from prographein, built from pro 'before' and graphein 'to write', so the literal sense was 'to write beforehand'. English first used 'program' in the 1600s for a public notice and then for a printed order of events at a concert or theatre, and only in the mid twentieth century did it take on its computing meaning of a coded set of instructions. The agent suffix '-er' was added to name the person who writes those instructions, giving 'programmer'. The spelling trap lives in that suffix: the single 'm' of 'program' doubles to 'mm' before '-er', because the stress and the short vowel pull the consonant into a pair, just as in 'beginner'.

How the word is built

• pro- (forth, before)
• gram (something written)
• -er (agent suffix, one who does)