code

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   to convert ordinary language into code

   We should code the message for security reasons.

2. 2
   noun

   A short textual designation, often with little relation to the item it represents.

   This flavour of soup has been assigned the code WRT-9.

3. 3
   noun

   A body of law, sanctioned by legislation, in which the rules of law to be specifically applied by the courts are set forth in systematic form; a compilation of laws by public authority; a digest.

   the mild and impartial spirit which pervades the Code compiled under Canute

4. 4
   noun

   Any system of principles, rules or regulations relating to one subject.

   The medical code is a system of rules for the regulation of the professional conduct of physicians.

5. 5
   noun

   A message represented by rules intended to conceal its meaning.

   [Isaac Newton] was obsessed with alchemy. He spent hours copying alchemical recipes and trying to replicate them in his laboratory. He believed that the Bible contained numerological codes.

6. 6
   noun

   Instructions for a computer, written in a programming language; the input of a translator, an interpreter or a browser, namely: source code, machine code, bytecode.

   Object-oriented C++ code is easier to understand for a human than C code.

7. 7
   noun

   A set of unwritten rules that bind a social group.

   girl code

8. 8
   verb

   To write software programs.

   I learned to code on an early home computer in the 1980s.

Etymology

From Middle English code (“system of law”), from Old French code (“system of law”), from Latin cōdex, later form of caudex (“the stock or stem of a tree, a board or tablet of wood smeared over with wax, on which the ancients originally wrote; hence, a book, a writing.”). Doublet of codex. Verb etymology 1, verb sense 7 is an ellipsis of code blue (“medical emergency”).