Word.ws English Dictionary

noise word

noise word noun: a word that may be included in source code for clarity but does not change the meaning.

Noun

noise word (plural noise words)

  1. A word that may be included in source code for clarity but does not change the meaning.
    • For example, in the COBOL goto statement, written GO TO , the keyword GO is required, but TO is an optional noise word which carries no information and is used only to improve readability.1975, Terrence W. Pratt, Programming Languages: Design and Implementation, page 381
  2. A stop word, one ignored in search queries etc.

Forms of noise word

pluralnoise words

Questions about noise word

What does noise word mean?
Noise word means a word that may be included in source code for clarity but does not change the meaning.
What part of speech is noise word?
Noise word is a noun.
What is the plural of noise word?
The plural of noise word is noise words.

Words near noise word in the dictionary

  1. noise stick
  2. noise sticks
  3. noise trader
  4. noise traders
  5. noise up
  6. noise word
  7. noise words
  8. noise-cancel
  9. noise-canceled
  10. noise-canceling
  11. noise-cancelled

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: noise word (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.

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