Parsing

Part of speech: noun, verb

Pronunciation: /ˈpɑː.zɪŋ/

Definitions

1. The process of analyzing the grammatical structure of language ; the act of examining data or code to interpret its syntactic elements
2. Breaking down sentences or expressions to understand their components ; interpreting structured information according to predefined rules
3. Examining language to identify parts and their relations ; systematically analyzing data to derive meaning or operational commands

Etymology: Parsing is a word that began as a plain noun for "parts," before it ever described grammar. Its root is Latin "pars," meaning "part, piece, share," which passed through Old French "part" and its plural form into Middle English as "pars," referring to parts or shares, and eventually to the parts of speech that make up a sentence. The verb "parse," from which "parsing" comes, grew out of that grammatical sense, so to parse a sentence was to divide it into its component parts and label each one. The Latin "pars" itself may go back to an older root meaning "to carry forth" or "to sell," a link that is uncertain, so the sense of dividing something into shares is the thread that connects the ancient word to the modern one. The verb's grammatical meaning is what gives "parsing" its everyday sense of breaking a sentence into pieces to see how it works.

Synonyms: analyzing, interpreting, examining, decoding, decomposing