parse
Americanverb (used with object)
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to analyze (a sentence) in terms of grammatical constituents, identifying the parts of speech, syntactic relations, etc.
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to describe (a word in a sentence) grammatically, identifying the part of speech, inflectional form, syntactic function, etc.
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to analyze (something, as a speech or behavior) to discover its implications or uncover a deeper meaning.
Political columnists were in their glory, parsing the president's speech on the economy in minute detail.
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Computers. to analyze (a string of characters) in order to associate groups of characters with the syntactic units of the underlying grammar.
verb (used without object)
verb
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to assign constituent structure to (a sentence or the words in a sentence)
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(intr) (of a word or linguistic element) to play a specified role in the structure of a sentence
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computing to analyse the source code of a computer program to make sure that it is structurally correct before it is compiled and turned into machine code
Other Word Forms
- misparse verb (used with object)
- parsable adjective
- parser noun
- parsing noun
- unparsed adjective
Etymology
Origin of parse
First recorded in 1545–55; from Latin pars “part,” as in pars ōrātiōnis “part of speech”
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Economic conditions remain a wild card for the rest of 2026 as investors parse how AI will reshape the labor market.
From MarketWatch
It would be one thing if trade flows and the dollar’s value reflected economic conditions that investors could themselves parse in creating a picture of investment opportunities.
From Los Angeles Times
The S&P 500 fell 1% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.5% as investors parsed the latest tariff news out of Washington.
From Barron's
This may be a strange and foreign idea for some to parse, but it’s true nonetheless.
From Salon
The Federal Reserve next meets March 17-18, giving them a policymakers a few more weeks to parse the fallout from that decision.
From Barron's
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
