debug
Americanverb (used with object)
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debugs,
present (3rd person singular)
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debugged,
past participle, past
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debugging
present participle
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to detect and remove defects or errors from.
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to remove electronic bugs from (a room or building).
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Computers. to detect and remove errors from (a computer program).
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to rid (a garden, plant, etc.) of insect pests, as by the application of a pesticide.
verb
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to locate and remove concealed microphones from (a room, etc)
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to locate and remove defects in (a device, system, plan, etc)
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to remove insects from
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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debugsimple
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debugssimple
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have debuggedperfect
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has debuggedperfect
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am debuggingprogressive
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are debuggingprogressive
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is debuggingprogressive
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have been debuggingperfect progressive
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has been debuggingperfect progressive
Past
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debuggedsimple
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had debuggedperfect
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was debuggingprogressive
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were debuggingprogressive
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had been debuggingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of debug
Vocabulary lists containing debug
Computer Science and Technology - Middle School
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Computer Science and Technology - High School
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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:
The whistleblower account detailed a series of problems with development and testing of the new computer system, which the person said can take nine months to a year to debug.
From Salon ● Sep. 2, 2026
New AI tools like Claude Code help write and debug software faster, and spin up a website or a marketing plan.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 4, 2026
The quick turnaround raises questions about how much time county officials allotted to debug the software and train employees.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 6, 2025
That should help debug systems and also benefit safety, the researchers say: If an AI is planning something dangerous, a human operator can tell and can intervene.
From Science Magazine ● Jan. 8, 2024
He taught that the next step along the path to self-knowledge was to debug those subroutines hidden in our minds at an early age by our teachers and, in particular, by our parents.
From Take Me for a Ride: coming of age in a destructive cult by Mark Eliot Laxer
It writes academic essays and fairy tales, tells jokes, explains scientific concepts and composes and debugs computer code.
From Scientific American ● Mar. 28, 2023
An engineer debugs an instrument at the China Spallation Neutron Source in Dongguan; scientists use accelerators such as this and the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility to study materials’ behaviour.Credit:
From Nature ● Mar. 19, 2019
A spokesman at Hasbro said the company expected that figure to rise as it debugs the game over the coming weeks.
From Time Magazine Archive
They have downloaded it, debugged it and redeployed it.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 29, 2026
The team has now synthesized and debugged all sixteen yeast chromosomes.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 8, 2023
It will be “a profound development in spaceflight if and when Starship is debugged and operational,” he said.
From Washington Times ● Apr. 15, 2023
These are not programs with single-line instructions that can be debugged easily.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 31, 2023
The only exception was that each team was permitted one laptop for work on the project, but it had to be handed over to be scanned, debugged, and approved for use.
From "City Spies" by James Ponti
Many of the mundane, routine tasks, like debugging code, can be done by AI.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 7, 2026
Anthropic says Fable 5 is exceptionally good at writing and debugging software code, answering complex research questions and analyzing images.
From Barron's ● Jun. 9, 2026
"Thanks to generative AI, researchers with a limited background in data science won't always need to form wide collaborations or spend hours debugging code," Tarca said.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 21, 2026
Imagine that you’re a senior software engineer debugging a system crash.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 15, 2026
Node:shotgun debugging, Next:shovelware, Previous:short card, Up:= S = shotgun debugging n.
From The Jargon File, Version 4.2.2, 20 Aug 2000 by Guy L. Steele
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.
