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api

nounB2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speech — apiece sits at #4,141mostly written

Other forms: apis

An API is the agreed set of calls one program offers another. A public API, call the API, the API changed.

It is a promise as much as a piece of code, since anything built on it breaks when it changes. Publishing an API means agreeing not to move things without warning.

Definitions of api

  1. 1nounapiThe agreed set of calls one program offers another.B2

    “The whole app stopped working when the API was retired.”

api is an interface.

Where it comes from

  1. bo

    ཨ་ཕྱི — grandmother

  2. English

    Api

  3. English, today

    api

Api comes from bo ཨ་ཕྱི (“grandmother”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Computing & Code

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Related words

  • apiece