code

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

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

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.countableuncountable

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

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

• The medical code is a system of rules for the regulation of the professional conduct of physicians.
• The naval code is a system of rules for making communications at sea by means of signals.

A set of rules for converting information into another form or representation.countableuncountable

A set of rules for converting information into another form or representation.; A codeword, code point, an encoded representation of a character, symbol, or other entity.countablesynecdocheuncountable

• The ASCII code of "A" is 65.

A message represented by rules intended to conceal its meaning.countableuncountable

• [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.

A cryptographic system using a codebook that converts words or phrases into codewords.countableuncountable

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.uncountable

• Object-oriented C++ code is easier to understand for a human than C code.
• I wrote some code to reformat text documents.

A program.countableuncountable

A particular lect or language variety.countableuncountable

To write software programs.

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

To add codes to (a data set).transitive

• The resulting citation collection was databased and coded for meaning, etymon, and date range (earliest and latest occurrence found).

To categorise by assigning identifiers from a schedule, for example CPT coding for medical insurance purposes.

To encode.

• We should code the messages we send out on Usenet.

To encode a protein.intransitive

To call a hospital emergency code.informal

• coding in the CT scanner

Of a patient, to suffer a sudden medical emergency (a code blue) such as cardiac arrest.informal

Alternative form of cod.alt-ofalternative