programmer
Americannoun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of programmer
Explanation
Someone who writes software or programs for computers is called a programmer. If you develop an application for mobile devices, you can also call yourself a programmer. Programmers use a variety of computer languages to write the code (or instructions) that helps computers do the things their users want them to do. There are programmers who specialize in specific languages which are useful in various industries — some are used by financial institutions and others by scientists, for example. Evidence of the dramatic way things change over time is clear from the shift in this word's meaning: in 1890, a programmer was an "event planner."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
They formed an unlikely alliance with Abe Connally, a retired computer programmer and Democrat who had already mapped 25 Flock cameras in the county.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 17, 2026
In 2012, a French programmer called Stéphane Gigandet launched a free, online and crowdsourced food product database called Open Food Facts during the Food Revolution Day organised by English chef Jamie Oliver.
From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2026
Alquinga, a 31-year-old programmer, said animals "may not be able to speak to us, or give us advice, but they are there to give us all the love that they have."
From Barron's ● Jul. 12, 2026
Gone are the days when British audiences largely tuned into the BBC or ITV, which launched 70 years ago as Britain’s first commercial competitor to the dominant state-supported programmer.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 6, 2026
Minutes earlier, the police had pulled into Utah State University, the workplace of Jim Furfaro’s wife, Jackie, a computer programmer.
From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel
The AI agents have been trained to act like collaborative hackers and programmers so are merely mimicking the kinds of emotive comments they have seen.
From BBC ● Sep. 9, 2026
Murdoch even owned the Dodgers for a stretch to corner the market on what was then a Wild West shoot-out among TV programmers to launch cable channels.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2026
Carville’s reputation for colorful turns of phrase, and his tendency to stomp on any calls for the party to move left, made him a favorite of cable news programmers looking to make entertaining television.
From Salon ● Aug. 14, 2026
Chinese AI models are often open-source, meaning they can be modified by programmers -- unlike top US options, where the underlying code and data is locked away.
From Barron's ● Aug. 10, 2026
The open source movement has grown to more than eight million users, perhaps the geekiest social movement on the Net, since its members and passionate adherents are programmers and designers.
From "Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho" by Jon Katz
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
