comment

views updated May 21 2018

com·ment / ˈkämˌent/ • n. a remark expressing an opinion or reaction. ∎  discussion, esp. of a critical nature, of an issue or event: the plans were sent to the council for comment. ∎  an indirect expression of the views of the creator of an artistic work: their second single is a comment on commercialism. ∎  an explanatory note in a book or other written text. ∎ archaic a written explanation or commentary. ∎  Comput. a piece of specially tagged text placed within a program to help other users to understand it, which the computer ignores when running the program.• v. [tr.] express (an opinion or reaction): the review commented that the book was agreeably written | [intr.] the company would not comment on the venture. ∎  Comput. place a piece of specially tagged explanatory text within (a program) to assist other users. ∎  Comput. turn (part of a program) into a comment so that the computer ignores it when running the program.PHRASES: no comment used in refusing to answer a question, esp. in a sensitive situation.DERIVATIVES: com·ment·er n.ORIGIN: late Middle English (in the senses ‘expository treatise’ and ‘explanatory note’): from Latin commentum ‘contrivance’ (in late Latin also ‘interpretation’), neuter past participle of comminisci ‘devise.’

comment

views updated May 21 2018

comment †commentary; explanatory note. XV. — L. commentum invention, interpretation, comment, f. comment-, pp. stem of comminiscī devise, contrive, f. COM- + *men-, base of mēns MIND.
Hence (or — F. commenter) comment vb. XVI. So commentary XV. commentator †chronicler XIV; writer of a commentary XVII.

comment

views updated May 14 2018

comment Part of a program text included for the benefit of the reader and ignored by the compiler. Each language has its own syntax for comments, usually a form of bracketing, e.g. {.....} in Pascal, /*.....*/ in C.

Some languages, including Ada, prefer “end-of-line” comments, which are introduced by a characteristic symbol and are automatically terminated at the end of a line. Older languages such as Basic and Fortran restrict comments to be whole lines and do not allow them to be appended to a line of code.

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