code

American  

[kohd] / koʊd /

noun

• codes
  plural

1. a system for communication by telegraph, heliograph, etc., in which long and short sounds, light flashes, etc., are used to symbolize the content of a message.

   Morse code.

2. a system used for brevity or secrecy of communication, in which arbitrarily chosen words, letters, or symbols are assigned definite meanings.

3. indirect wording that is euphemistic, deceptive, or opaque.

   The firm says its testing methodology is “proprietary”—which some believe is code for “hidden from scrutiny.”

4. any set of standards set forth and enforced by a local government agency for the protection of public safety, health, etc., as in the structural safety of buildings building code, health requirements for plumbing, ventilation, etc. sanitary code or health code, and the specifications for fire escapes or exits fire code.

5. a systematically arranged collection or compendium of laws, rules, or regulations.

6. any authoritative, general, systematic, and written statement of the legal rules and principles applicable in a given legal order to one or more broad areas of life.

7. a word, letter, number, or other symbol used in a code system to mark, represent, or identify something.

   The code on the label shows the date of manufacture.

8. Computers.

   1. a set of symbols that can be interpreted by a computer or piece of software: Java code;

      binary code;

      Java code;

      ASCII code.

   2. the symbolic arrangement of statements or instructions in a computer program, or the set of instructions in such a program.

      That program took 3000 lines of code.

9. any system or collection of rules and regulations.

   a gentleman's code of behavior.

10. Medicine/Medical. a directive or alert to a hospital team assigned to emergency resuscitation of patients.

11. Genetics. genetic code.

12. Linguistics.

    1. the system of rules shared by the participants in an act of communication, making possible the transmission and interpretation of messages.

    2. (in sociolinguistic theory) one of two distinct styles of language use that differ in degree of explicitness and are sometimes thought to be correlated with differences in social class.

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verb (used with object)

• codes,
  present (3rd person singular)
• coded,
  past participle,  past
• coding
  present participle

1. to translate (a message) into a code; encode.

2. to categorize or identify by assigning a code to.

   All specimens were coded prior to the test.

3. to arrange or enter (laws or statutes) in a code.

4. Computers. to write code for (a computer program or application) (often followed byup ).

   Hire a programmer to code up a website for you.

verb (used without object)

• codes,
  present (3rd person singular)
• coded,
  past participle,  past
• coding
  present participle

1. Genetics. to specify the amino acid sequence of a protein by the sequence of nucleotides comprising the gene for that protein.

   a gene that codes for the production of insulin.

2. Computers. to write computer code.

code British  

/ kəʊd /

noun

1. a system of letters or symbols, and rules for their association by means of which information can be represented or communicated for reasons of secrecy, brevity, etc See also genetic code

   binary code

   Morse code

2. a message in code

3. a symbol used in a code

4. a conventionalized set of principles, rules, or expectations

   a code of behaviour

5. a system of letters or digits used for identification or selection purposes

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verb

1. to translate, transmit, or arrange into a code

code Scientific  

/ kōd /

1. A system of signals used to represent letters or numbers in transmitting messages.

2. The instructions in a computer program. Instructions written by a programmer in a programming language are often called source code. Instructions that have been converted into machine language that the computer understands are called machine code or executable code.

3. See also programming language

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code Cultural  

1. A series of instructions designed to be fed into a computer.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• coder
  noun
• subcode
  noun
• precode
  verb (used with object)
• recode
  verb (used with object)
• codeless
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• codes
  plural

Participles

• coding
  present
• coded
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• code
  simple
• codes
  simple
• have coded
  perfect
• has coded
  perfect
• am coding
  progressive
• are coding
  progressive
• is coding
  progressive
• have been coding
  perfect progressive
• has been coding
  perfect progressive

Past

• coded
  simple
• had coded
  perfect
• was coding
  progressive
• were coding
  progressive
• had been coding
  perfect progressive

Future

• will code
  simple
• will have coded
  perfect
• will be coding
  progressive
• will have been coding
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of code

First recorded in 1275–1325; Middle English, from Anglo-French, Old French, from Latin cōdex “book”; see codex

Explanation

A code can be a set of principles. Our laws make up our legal code, and many people govern themselves through a personal "code of honor." Code can also mean a system for sending secret messages, or programming language for computers. In 1303, you could only use code to mean a set of laws, such as a code of conduct. It wasn’t until 1808 that you could use code to describe a system for sending secret messages. The verb form appeared in 1815, meaning to create laws or send secret messages, and gave birth to encode. In the computer programming context, encode was shortened back again to code, meaning to write instructions for a computer program. Soon the lines of text themselves began to be referred to as simply code.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

code codes coded coding

Scan a QR code, tap a few buttons and the money moves instantly.

From BBC ● Aug. 16, 2026

“We are not going to have cross traffic again in these complicated airspaces like DCA,” he said, using the airport’s code.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026

Closed AI models, such as those developed by rivals Anthropic and OpenAI, keep their code private and cannot be tweaked.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2026

The reactions themselves are extremely ancient and are conserved across life to a degree comparable with the genetic code.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 12, 2026

She went to her computer and wrote some code, walked a set of punch cards to the mainframe in another building, and waited while it slugged through the calculations.

From "Mountain of Fire" by Rebecca E. F. Barone

Shelters displayed QR codes so that those affected can report missing relatives or damage to their homes.

From Barron's ● Aug. 17, 2026

Shoppers trying to identify Taylor Farms products themselves have occasionally been advised to look for packaging codes beginning with “TF” or similar letters.

From Salon ● Aug. 14, 2026

Over the years, other design houses have adopted hardware as part of their codes too.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2026

These are the top 10 hottest ZIP codes in the country and median listing prices in each:

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 11, 2026

She did her best to keep pace mentally when Kat tried to explain complex theories on patterns and codes using a Scrabble game.

From "City Spies" by James Ponti

If this had been coded correctly, a "timelier" ambulance response would "likely" have been sent.

From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2026

In the early years of vehicle autonomy, Tesla, Alphabet’s robotaxi unit Waymo and others meticulously coded driving instructions into software.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 28, 2026

It also prohibits the use of “sell by” dates on food packaging, but it does allow coded “sell by” dates that retain stock rotation information for retailers.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 26, 2026

The private meetings, the coded language, the missing details.

From Salon ● Jun. 6, 2026

He runs agents, reads coded messages, and watches for moles.

From "George Washington, Spymaster" by Thomas B. Allen

So far this earnings season, 11% of S&P 500 companies quantified the impact of AI productivity on a specific use case, such as coding or customer support, Goldman notes.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 17, 2026

Zinger expressed the same sentiment in a Substack post last week, writing that Google’s AI strategy is solidifying around “prosaic matters” such as coding and search, instead of DeepMind’s original vision of chasing AGI.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 15, 2026

Tencent and others are offering simplified installation and affordable coding plans to help users host OpenClaw agents on cloud servers.

From Barron's ● Aug. 12, 2026

Anthropic has boasted that its popular coding tool and chatbot Claude is capable of working on its own for seven hours without a break, external, essentially a full corporate workday.

From BBC ● Aug. 10, 2026

I told you, I’m almost done with the coding.

From "The First State of Being" by Erin Entrada Kelly

Related Words

• constitution
• convention
• custom
• discipline
• laws
• regulation
• rules
• system