Standard Lemma guide

encoding

noun · verb · 4 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

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

Pronunciation

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.

  • General-American: /ɪnˈkoʊdɪŋ/
  • Received-Pronunciation: /ɪnˈkəʊdɪŋ/
  • Southern-England: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • rhymes with -əʊdɪŋ
  • CMU ARPABET: EH0 N K OW1 D IH0 NG Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.

1

noun

Meaning 1

The way in which symbols are mapped onto bytes, e.g. in the rendering of a particular font, or in the mapping from keyboard input into visual text.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Topics: computing, engineering, mathematics, natural-sciences, physical-sciences, sciences

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

noun

Meaning 2

A conversion of plain text into a code or cypher form (for transmission to a recipient).

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: decoding

3

verb

Meaning 3

present participle and gerund of encode

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: form-of, gerund, participle, present

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

4

noun

Meaning 4

the activity of converting data or information into code

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: encryption

Antonyms: none provided

Broader terms: cryptography, coding, secret writing, steganography

Narrower terms: compression, data encryption

History

Etymology

No etymology was provided for this word.

Across languages

Translations

25 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Arabic: تَرْمِيز (tarmīz) — character encoding (computing)
  • Arabic: إِنْكُودِينْغ (ʔinkūdinḡ) — character encoding (computing)
  • Azerbaijani: kodlaşdırma — character encoding (computing)
  • Chinese Mandarin: 編碼 /编码 (biānmǎ) — character encoding (computing)
  • Dutch: codering — character encoding (computing)
  • Esperanto: kodoprezento — character encoding (computing)
  • Finnish: koodaus — character encoding (computing)
  • French: codage — character encoding (computing)
  • German: Kodierung — character encoding (computing)
  • Greek: κωδικοποίηση (kodikopoíisi) — character encoding (computing)
  • Hebrew: קִידוּד (kidúd) — character encoding (computing)
  • Hindi: एन्कोडिंग (enkoḍiṅg) — character encoding (computing)
  • Japanese: エンコーディング (enkōdingu) — character encoding (computing)
  • Japanese: 文字コード (moji-kōdo) — character encoding (computing)
  • Korean: 인코딩 (inkoding) — character encoding (computing)
  • Northern Kurdish: kodkarî — character encoding (computing)
  • Northern Kurdish: kodkirin — character encoding (computing)
  • Polish: kodowanie — character encoding (computing)
  • Portuguese: codificação — character encoding (computing)
  • Russian: кодиро́вка (kodiróvka) — character encoding (computing)
  • Russian: набо́р си́мволов (nabór símvolov) — character encoding (computing)
  • Russian: коди́рование (kodírovanije) — character encoding (computing)
  • Spanish: codificación — character encoding (computing)
  • Swedish: kodning — character encoding (computing)
  • Vietnamese: biên mã — character encoding (computing)
Real reading context

encoding in complete knowledge articles