software engineering
software engineering noun: the subfield of engineering concerned with applying a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software.
Noun
software engineering (uncountable)
- The subfield of engineering concerned with applying a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software.
software engineering meaning in Tamil, Malay, Indonesian and Thai
software engineering in Tamil
- மென்பொருள் பொறியியல்
software engineering in Malay
- subfield of engineering concerned with the development, operation, and maintenance of software
- kejuruteraan perisian
software engineering in Indonesian
- subfield of engineering concerned with the development, operation, and maintenance of software
- rekayasa perangkat lunak
software engineering in Thai
- subfield of engineering concerned with the development, operation, and maintenance of software
- วิศวกรรมซอฟต์แวร์
Origin of software engineering
First attested in 1965 in service listings (in “systems software engineering”), partly popularized by American computer scientists Anthony Oettinger and Margaret Hamilton later in the decade. In a 1966 letter to the members of the Association for Computing Machinery, listed by the Oxford English Dictionary as the term’s first attestation, Oettinger wrote, “We must recognize ourselves […] as members of an engineering profession, be it hardware engineering or software engineering […]”.
Questions about software engineering
- What does software engineering mean?
- Software engineering means the subfield of engineering concerned with applying a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software.
- What is software engineering in Tamil?
- Software engineering in Tamil is மென்பொருள் பொறியியல். See Software engineering meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is software engineering?
- Software engineering is a noun.
Words near software engineering in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: software engineering (page history and authors); software engineering (Tamil Wiktionary) (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: “software engineering.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/software_engineering. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.