Phrase guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
No pronunciation record was provided for this word.
noun
Anything in a program's source code that suggests the presence of a design problem.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Topics: computing, engineering, mathematics, natural-sciences, physical-sciences, programming, sciences
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
Analogous to a bad smell indicating e.g. rotten food. Apparently coined by American software engineer Kent Beck, in the late 1990s. Popularized via the book Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code, co-authored by Beck.
Across languages
2 source translations are retained for this English entry.
