parse. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

The American Heritage^® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

parse

PRONUNCIATION:	pärs
VERB:	Inflected forms: parsed, pars·ing, pars·es
TRANSITIVE VERB:	1. To break (a sentence) down into its component parts of speech with an explanation of the form, function, and syntactical relationship of each part. 2. To describe (a word) by stating its part of speech, form, and syntactical relationships in a sentence. 3a. To examine closely or subject to detailed analysis, especially by breaking up into components: “What are we missing by parsing the behavior of chimpanzees into the conventional categories recognized largely from our own behavior?” (Stephen Jay Gould). b. To make sense of; comprehend: I simply couldn't parse what you just said. 4. Computer Science To analyze or separate (input, for example) into more easily processed components.
INTRANSITIVE VERB:	To admit of being parsed: sentences that do not parse easily.
ETYMOLOGY:	Probably from Middle English pars, part of speech, from Latin pars (rtinis), part (of speech). See per-² in Appendix I.
OTHER FORMS:	parser —NOUN


The American Heritage^® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.