encode

Etymology

It is formed from English en- + code,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} with the prefix meaning "to make, put in" and the noun in its sense of a system of signals or a cipher.^[3][2] Code goes back through Old French code (“system of laws, law-book”) to Latin codex (“book; code of laws”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

To translate into cipher or code: 1919, in L. Tissot-Dupont's dictionary of telegraph and telephone terms.^[2][4] Etymonline dates the verb to 1917,^[3] and Dictionary.com to 1930–35.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The verb began in telegraphy and cryptography, for putting a message into code.^[2][3] From 1955 it was used in computing, for converting data or characters into a form a machine can use, and there it is often shortened to code.^[3][2] The noun encoding is recorded from 1953.^[7] Merriam-Webster widened the definition to transferring information from one system of communication into another, and added the senses of conveying something symbolically and, in genetics, of a gene specifying the code for a protein.^[4][8]

Timeline

• 1919 – to translate a message into cipher or code.^[2][4] Etymonline dates the verb to 1917.^[3]
• 1955 – in computing, to convert data into another form.^[3][2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To put a message into code or cipher: The officer encoded the order before sending it.^[9][4][10]
2. (computing) To convert characters, data or a program into digital form or machine language.^[9][10]
3. To convert an electrical signal into a form suitable for transmission.^[9]
4. Of a gene, to specify the genetic code for a product: This gene encodes an enzyme that digests lactose.^[4][8]
5. To express or convey something symbolically: songs that encode a village's memory of the famine.^[4][8]

Word family

• encoder
• encodable
• encodement
• misencode

Related words

• code
• codec

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin