debug
2 antonyms and opposites of debug, grouped by meaning.
Verb — To find and remove the faults in a computer program or system that stop it behaving as intended.
Synonyms by Meaning
1. verb technical
To find and remove the faults in a computer program or system that stop it behaving as intended.
“I spent the whole afternoon trying to debug the checkout page after customers reported blank receipts.”
2. verb
To search a room, building or device for hidden listening equipment and remove it.
“Security swept and debugged the meeting room before the negotiations began.”
Opposites
3. adjective
Of a mode, build or output: producing extra detail about what a program is doing internally, so that faults can be traced.
“Turn on debug logging and send me whatever the console prints.”
Opposites
Antonyms
How to use debug
The word patterns that sound natural to a native speaker.
Neutral and standard in software work. The listening-device sense belongs mostly to security and espionage contexts.
Etymology
From de- meaning to remove, plus bug in the sense of a fault or defect in a machine, an engineering usage that predates computing.
Full origin of debug →Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between debugging and testing?
Testing is the work of checking whether software behaves as expected and revealing that a fault exists. Debugging starts afterwards: it is the work of tracing that fault to its cause in the code and correcting it. In short, testing finds the symptom and debugging finds the reason.
What is a debugger?
A debugger is a tool that runs a program under supervision so you can pause it at chosen points, step through it one instruction at a time, and inspect the values held in memory. It makes it possible to watch what the program is actually doing rather than infer it from the final output.
Why is a software fault called a bug?
Bug was already in use by engineers for a defect or glitch in a machine well before electronic computing, and the word carried over to faults in programs. The often-repeated story of a moth found in an early computer is a memorable anecdote about the term already being current, not the origin of it.