noun
lex
lehks
noun
1
A law, especially one from ancient Roman legal tradition.
"Historians still study the leges of the Roman Republic."
verb
1
(computing) To break a stream of text into a sequence of tokens as the first stage of processing code.
"The compiler will lex the source file before parsing it."
How to Use Lex
Learner’s notesIn plain EnglishEither a formal Latin term for "law," or programmer shorthand for scanning code into tokens.
When to use it
The Latin legal sense is academic/historical; the computing sense is technical jargon.
Word Forms
lexed past tense, lexes plural, leges plural, lexes singular
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The compiler will _____ the source file before parsing it.
Etymology
Latin lex, meaning "law." The computing sense comes from "lexical analysis," shortened to "lex."