Definition of "code"

code¹

/kəʊd/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural codes
1. A short textual designation, often with little relation to the item it represents.
2. A body of law, sanctioned by legislation, in which the rules of law to be specifically applied by the courts are set forth in systematic form; a compilation of laws by public authority; a digest.
  Quotations
  the mild and impartial spirit which pervades the Code compiled under Canute
  1872, Francis Wharton, A Treatise on the Conflict of Laws
3. Any system of principles, rules or regulations relating to one subject.
4. A set of rules for converting information into another form or representation.
  1. By synecdoche: a codeword, code point, an encoded representation of a character, symbol, or other entity.
5. A message represented by rules intended to conceal its meaning.
  Quotations
  [Isaac Newton] was obsessed with alchemy. He spent hours copying alchemical recipes and trying to replicate them in his laboratory. He believed that the Bible contained numerological codes.
  2014 June 21, “Magician’s brain”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8892
6. (cryptography) A cryptographic system using a codebook that converts words or phrases into codewords.
7. (programming, uncountable) Instructions for a computer, written in a programming language; the input of a translator, an interpreter or a browser, namely: source code, machine code, bytecode.
8. (scientific programming) A program.
9. (linguistics) A particular lect or language variety.
10. (medicine) An emergency requiring situation-trained members of the staff.
11. (informal) A set of unwritten rules that bind a social group.
verb
third-person singular simple present codes, present participle coding, simple past and past participle coded
1. (computing) To write software programs.
2. (transitive) To add codes to (a data set).
  Quotations
  The resulting citation collection was databased and coded for meaning, etymon, and date range (earliest and latest occurrence found).
  2018, James Lambert, “A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity”, in English World-Wide‎, page 5
3. To categorise by assigning identifiers from a schedule, for example CPT coding for medical insurance purposes.
4. (cryptography) To encode.
5. (genetics, intransitive) To encode a protein.
6. (medicine) To call a hospital emergency code.
7. (intransitive, medicine) To go into a state where a hospital emergency code is required to save one's life.

code²

/kəʊd/

verb
third-person singular simple present codes, present participle coding, simple past and past participle coded
1. (medicine) Of a patient, to suffer a sudden medical emergency (a code blue) such as cardiac arrest.