Word.ws English Dictionary

call-by-name

call-by-name noun: an evaluation strategy whereby an argument to a function is evaluated each time its value is used in the function, and is not evaluated at all if its value is never used.

Noun

call-by-name (uncountable)

  1. An evaluation strategy whereby an argument to a function is evaluated each time its value is used in the function, and is not evaluated at all if its value is never used.
    Synonyms:
    pass-by-name

Synonyms of call-by-name

Forms of call-by-name

alternative formcall by name

Questions about call-by-name

What does call-by-name mean?
Call-by-name means an evaluation strategy whereby an argument to a function is evaluated each time its value is used in the function, and is not evaluated at all if its value is never used.
What part of speech is call-by-name?
Call-by-name is a noun.

Words near call-by-name in the dictionary

  1. call-and-response
  2. call-bell
  3. call-boy
  4. call-boys
  5. call-by-future
  6. call-by-name
  7. call-by-need
  8. call-by-reference
  9. call-by-value
  10. Call-Fleming syndrome
  11. call-girl

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: call-by-name (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “call-by-name.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/call-by-name. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.