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PlainSpell

code

/koʊd/noun, verb

code is spelled C-O-D-E: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 120 times per million words in written English, the 873rd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, code means “A short textual designation, often with little relation to the item it represents” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of code is codes.

How many letters and syllables are in code?

Letters4: C-O-D-E
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing120 times per million words; the 873rd most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Rhymes with
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is code?

Code appears 120 times per million words in written English, the 873rd most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce code?

  • UK /kəʊd/
  • US /koʊd/

Code has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-code.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with code

Also written: cod.

Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with code?

The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as code from its last stressed vowel (/oʊd/):

Spelled with the same letters in another order: deco, coed.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of code

  • codes plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • coding participle, present
  • coded participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does code mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

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

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

  2. 2

    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.

  3. 3

    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.

  4. 4

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

  5. 5

    A codeword, code point, an encoded representation of a character, symbol, or other entity.

    The ASCII code of "A" is 65.

  6. 6

    A message represented by rules intended to conceal its meaning.

  7. 7

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

  8. 8

    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.

  9. 9

    Alternative form of cod.

verb

  1. 1

    To write software programs.

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

  2. 2

    To add codes to (a data set).

  3. 3

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

  4. 4

    To encode.

    We should code the messages we send out on Usenet.

  5. 5

    To encode a protein.

  6. 6

    informalTo call a hospital emergency code.

    coding in the CT scanner

  7. 7

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

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you abbreviate code?

Wiktionary records one abbreviation of code: C..

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Code in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Portuguesecódigo (symbol or short designation), programar (to write software programs), encriptar, criptografar, codificar (cryptography: to encode)
Spanishcódigo (symbol or short designation), programar (to write software programs), codificar, encriptar, criptografiar (cryptography: to encode), clave (cryptographic system)
Frenchprogrammer (to write software programs), code (body of law)
Germanprogrammieren, koden (coden) (to write software programs), Kodex, Gesetzbuch (body of law), Code, Kode (set of rules for converting information)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does code come from?

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”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after code