Coder

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A professional responsible for creating and implementing software by writing code, often utilizing various programming languages and technologies for diverse applications
2. A specialist who develops computer programs by coding, interpreting specifications, and producing functional software solutions through programming
3. An individual skilled in programming who writes instructions for computers using programming languages

Etymology: The word "coder" is a plain formation: English "code" with the agent suffix "-er" attached, meaning one who works with code. The source gives no dates or first recorded uses for the compound, so none appear here. The suffix itself has a long pedigree. The "-er" ending descends from Latin "-arius", which passed through Old French "-ier" into Middle English, and reaches back through Proto-Germanic and Old English "-ere" along a separate path. Many of English's everyday person-nouns were built this way, so "coder" joins a large family of words ending in the same sound. The root "code" is the more interesting part. It comes from Latin "caudex" or "codex", meaning a block of wood or a tree trunk, and later a book made of bound wooden tablets. Old French carried "code" into English as a term for a collection of laws. The sense of a set of symbols or instructions is a later extension, so the computing meaning of "coder" rests on a word that originally referred to a stack of wooden writing boards.

Synonyms: programmer, developer, software engineer, hacker, technologist