parse

[pahrs, pahrz] /pɑrs, pɑrz/

verb (used with object), parsed, parsing.

to analyze (a sentence) in terms of grammatical constituents, identifying the parts of speech, syntactic relations, etc.

to describe (a word in a sentence) grammatically, identifying the part of speech, inflectional form, syntactic function, etc.

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.

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), parsed, parsing.

to be able to be parsed; lend itself to parsing:

Sorry, but your concluding paragraph simply doesn't parse.

Origin

1545-55; < Latin pars part, as in pars ōrātiōnis part of speech

Related forms

parsable, adjective

parser, noun

misparse, verb (used with object), misparsed, misparsing.

unparsed, adjective

British Dictionary definitions for parsers

parse

/pɑːz/

verb (grammar)

to assign constituent structure to (a sentence or the words in a sentence)

(intransitive) (of a word or linguistic element) to play a specified role in the structure of a sentence

(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

Derived Forms

parsable, adjective
parsing, noun

Word Origin

C16: from Latin pars (orātionis) part (of speech)

Word Origin and History for parsers

parse

1550s, "to state the parts of speech in a sentence," verb use of Middle English pars (n.) "part of speech" (c.1300), from Old French pars, plural of part "part," from Latin pars (see part (n.)) in school question, Quae pars orationis? "What part of speech?" Transferred (non-grammatical) use is from 1788. Pars was a common plural of part (n.) in early Middle English. Related: Parsed; parsing.