parse

[ pahrs, especially British, pahrz ]
See synonyms for parse on Thesaurus.com
verb (used with object),parsed, pars·ing.
  1. to analyze (a sentence) in terms of grammatical constituents, identifying the parts of speech, syntactic relations, etc.

  2. to describe (a word in a sentence) grammatically, identifying the part of speech, inflectional form, syntactic function, etc.

  1. to analyze (something, as a speech or behavior) to discover its implications or uncover a deeper meaning: Political columnists were in their glory, parsing the president's speech on the economy in minute detail.

  2. Computers. to analyze (a string of characters) in order to associate groups of characters with the syntactic units of the underlying grammar.

verb (used without object),parsed, pars·ing.
  1. to be able to be parsed; lend itself to parsing: Sorry, but your concluding paragraph simply doesn't parse.

Origin of parse

1
First recorded in 1545–55; from Latin pars “part,” as in pars ōrātiōnis “part of speech”

Other words from parse

  • pars·a·ble, adjective
  • pars·er, noun
  • mis·parse, verb (used with object), mis·parsed, mis·pars·ing.
  • un·parsed, adjective

Words Nearby parse

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use parse in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for parse

parse

/ (pɑːz) /


verbgrammar
  1. to assign constituent structure to (a sentence or the words in a sentence)

  2. (intr) (of a word or linguistic element) to play a specified role in the structure of a sentence

  1. computing to analyse the source code of a computer program to make sure that it is structurally correct before it is compiled and turned into machine code

Origin of parse

1
C16: from Latin pars (orātionis) part (of speech)

Derived forms of parse

  • parsable, adjective
  • parsing, noun

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012