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program

nounverbcommon in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//ˈpɹəʊ̯ˌɡɹæm//
  • Canada//ˈpɹoʊ̯ˌɡɹæm//
  • Australia//ˈpɹəʉˌɡɹæm//
  • //ˈpɹoʊ̯ˌɡɹeə̯m//
  • //ˈpɹoʊ̯ˌɡɹɛə̯m//

A set of structured activities; a plan of action.

noun

  1. 1

    A set of structured activities; a plan of action.

    get with the program

    Our program for today’s exercise class includes swimming and jogging.

  2. 2

    A leaflet listing information about a play, game or other activity.

    The program consisted of ads for restaurants and the credits of everyone connected with the play.

  3. 3

    A set of principal goals which someone, especially a political party or candidate, supports.

    the Toronto Sun, a daily tabloid whose programme is roughly that of the American National Enquirer or the British News of the World

  4. 4

    A performance of a show or other broadcast on radio or television.

    Tonight’s program was hosted by Johnny Carson.

  5. 5

    A computer program.

    The program runs on both Linux and Microsoft Windows.

  6. 6

    A particular mindset or method of doing things.

    Ellis: Come on, John, why don’t you get with the program and tell him where the detonators are?

  7. 7

    A custom tracklist.

    program playback

Etymology

Borrowed from French programme, from Late Latin programma (“a proclamation, edict”), from Ancient Greek πρόγραμμα (prógramma, “a written public notice, an edict”), from προγράφω (prográphō, “to set forth as a public notice”), from πρό (pró, “before”) + γράφω (gráphō, “to write”). Doublet of programma.

verb

  1. 1

    To enter a program or other instructions into (a computer or other electronic device) to instruct it to do a particular task.

    He programmed the DVR to record his favorite show.

  2. 2

    To develop (software) by writing program code.

    I programmed a small game as a demonstration.

  3. 3

    To put together the schedule of an event.

    Mary will program Tuesday’s festivities.

  4. 4

    To schedule the programming; to determine what will be broadcast.

    We program for special audience groups, too, as shown by our Mexican language program each Sunday morning.

  5. 5

    To cause to automatically behave in a particular way.

    The lab rat was programmed to press the lever when the bell rang.

    My point was not to commend but to expose her, and her way of thinking. In another place a teenage character worries that her stomach is too big. I, the author don't think her stomach is too big—the character does, because she's been programmed that way.

Forms

plural
programs
past tense
programmed, programed
past participle
programmed, programed
present participle
programming, programing
third person singular
programs
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).