# parse

/ˈpɑɹs/ (US) · /pˈɑːs/ (UK)

Source: https://englishreference.com/word/parse
Updated: 2026-08-27

## Senses

### 1. linguistic analysis

verb · CEFR C1 · Technical · Academic

to analyze a sentence by naming its parts, like nouns and verbs, and explaining how they work together.

For teachers: to resolve a sentence into its component parts of speech and describe their grammatical relationship.

- The students had to parse a complex poem to understand its hidden meaning.
- In the introductory linguistics seminar, students were required to parse archaic Latin inscriptions to identify obsolete case endings.

Usage: Often used as a transitive verb taking a sentence or phrase as its object.

### 2. computing/data

verb · CEFR C1 · Technical

to break a string of data or code into smaller pieces so a computer can understand or use it.

For teachers: to process a string of code or data to determine its syntactic structure relative to a formal grammar.

- The software failed because it could not parse the data from the old file.
- The compiler will not execute the script if the source code fails to parse due to a missing semicolon in the declaration.

Usage: Can be used transitively for the action or intransitively to describe if code is valid.

### 3. to scrutinize

verb · CEFR C2 · Formal

to look at something very carefully to understand every small detail.

For teachers: to examine or scrutinize something closely in order to extract specific meaning or intent.

- Lawyers had to parse every word of the contract to find any mistakes.
- Political analysts spent hours parsing the minister's speech for any hint of a policy shift regarding international trade.

### 4. the act of analyzing

noun · CEFR C2 · Technical

the act of breaking down information or the result of that analysis.

For teachers: the instance or result of a parsing process, particularly in a computational context.

- The system performed a quick parse of the document to check for errors.
- After the initial parse of the raw telemetry data, the engineers identified a recurring synchronization error in the satellite's transmission.

Usage: Usually a countable noun.

## Examples

- The computer can parse the data from the file.
- The parser failed to parse the XML document because the tags were not properly closed.
- A sophisticated natural language processing system must first parse the sentence to identify the subject and object before it can determine the underlying logical relationship between the clauses.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.