parse

American  

[pahrs, pahrz] / pɑrs, pɑrz /

verb (used with object)

• parses,
  present (3rd person singular)
• parsed,
  past participle,  past
• parsing
  present participle

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.

3. 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.

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

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verb (used without object)

• parses,
  present (3rd person singular)
• parsed,
  past participle,  past
• parsing
  present participle

1. to be able to be parsed; lend itself to parsing.

   Sorry, but your concluding paragraph simply doesn't parse.

parse British  

/ pɑːz /

verb

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

3. 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

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• parser
  noun
• parsing
  noun
• misparse
  verb (used with object)
• parsable
  adjective
• unparsed
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Participles

• parsing
  present
• parsed
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• parse
  simple
• parses
  simple
• have parsed
  perfect
• has parsed
  perfect
• am parsing
  progressive
• are parsing
  progressive
• is parsing
  progressive
• have been parsing
  perfect progressive
• has been parsing
  perfect progressive

Past

• parsed
  simple
• had parsed
  perfect
• was parsing
  progressive
• were parsing
  progressive
• had been parsing
  perfect progressive

Future

• will parse
  simple
• will have parsed
  perfect
• will be parsing
  progressive
• will have been parsing
  perfect progressive

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Etymology

Origin of parse

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

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Explanation

When you parse a sentence, you break it into parts and analyze each element carefully. When your sweetheart shouts "You never listen!" it's a bad idea to parse that by replying, "I just heard you, so I must be listening." The ability to successfully parse language is important. A binding legal contract, for example, should be read very carefully so you know exactly what's going on. You can also parse things that are more personal. You might exhaustively parse the comments of the guy you have a desperate crush on for any hint that he shares your passionate feelings. The sad truth of the matter? If you have to parse, he probably doesn't love you. Apply your parsing skills elsewhere!

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

parse parses parsed parsing

The models also struggled to parse negation correctly, as in “take with food” versus “don’t take with food.”

From Slate ● Oct. 16, 2026

My English teachers and literature professors were probably too tired to parse such nuance, and I don’t blame them.

From Salon ● Oct. 3, 2026

A professional can help you parse your options, and maybe even remind you both of what drew you to each other in the first place.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 18, 2026

So executives are asking employees to send more of those chats to group threads, which agents can parse.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 25, 2026

Ambata did, but Kathy still could not parse the words.

From "Zeitoun" by Dave Eggers

And that’s a common scenario for AT&T as it parses through all the options out there.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026

Rebecca Onion parses the book for clues that could explain the film’s cryptic ending.

From Slate ● Dec. 15, 2023

She can hear it in the audible gasps of onlookers as she parses a moment in the pandemic that they had forgotten.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 14, 2023

The Long Short-Term Memory network, originally developed to help machines learn human languages, parses detailed inflation data to spot patterns that helps it predict the Consumer Price Index in the future.

From Reuters ● Aug. 10, 2022

"The rover currently parses the signal into bytes, then identifies the specific sequence the Hab sends. That way, natural radio waves won't throw off the homing. If the bytes aren't right, the rover ignores them."

From "The Martian" by Andy Weir

—Asian equities were mostly lower as investors parsed valuations following Wall Street’s recent rally.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026

The LAPD’s Nike case has been parsed in the online sneakerhead community, with questions raised about how much local dealers knew — or should have known — about the origins of their merchandise.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026

For his part, Thomas writes as though history resides principally in legal texts, 19th-century dictionaries, and carefully parsed debates over sovereignty.

From Slate ● Jul. 2, 2026

Yardeni and his team parsed the official data released monthly by the Treasury Department, and found that foreign investors poured more than $1.4 trillion into U.S. assets during the 12 months through April 2026.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 28, 2026

Suppose a reader has successfully parsed a sentence and now has an understanding of who did what to whom or what is true of what.

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker

The picture shocked Al-Drimly, triggering emotions he was still parsing.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 12, 2026

“I think we’re more steeped in storytelling than we’ve ever been,” he said, “yet we’re worse at parsing it.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 23, 2026

For investors parsing the regulatory filings, these industry trends supporting the stock carry far more weight than a few automated transactions.

From Barron's ● Jun. 18, 2026

Eastern Daylight Time, is worth quoting and parsing:

From Slate ● Jun. 11, 2026

These pairs pop out of the text at us, and when they belong to the same phrase they can lubricate the parsing process, allowing the words to be joined up quickly.

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker

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