[ing-glish or, often, -lish] 
| 1. | of, pertaining to, or characteristic of England or its inhabitants, institutions, etc. |
| 2. | belonging or pertaining to, or spoken or written in, the English language. |
| 3. | the people of England collectively, esp. as distinguished from the Scots, Welsh, and Irish. |
| 4. | the Germanic language of the British Isles, widespread and standard also in the U.S. and most of the British Commonwealth, historically termed Old English (c450–c1150), Middle English (c1150–c1475), and Modern English (after c1475). Abbreviation: E |
| 5. | English language, composition, and literature as offered as a course of study in school. |
| 6. | a specific variety of this language, as that of a particular time, place, or person: American English; Shakespearean English. |
| 7. | simple, straightforward language: What does all that jargon mean in English? |
| 8. | Sports. (sometimes lowercase )
|
| 9. | Printing. a 14-point type of a size between pica and Columbian. |
| 10. | a grade of calendered paper having a smooth matte finish. |
| 11. | to translate into English: to English Euripides. |
| 12. | to adopt (a foreign word) into English; Anglicize. |
| 13. | (sometimes lowercase) Sports. to impart English to (a ball). |
| Eng·lish (ĭng'glĭsh) adj.
[Middle English, from Old English Englisc, from Engle, the Angles.] Eng'lish·ness n. Word History: English is derived from England, one would think. But in fact the language name is found long before the country name. The latter first appears as Englaland around the year 1000, and means "the land of the Engle," that is, the Angles. The Angles, Saxons, and Jutes were the three Germanic tribes who emigrated from what is now Denmark and northern Germany and settled in England beginning about the fourth century A.D. Early on, the Angles enjoyed a rise to power that must have made them seem more important than the other two tribes, for all three tribes are indiscriminately referred to in early documents as Angles. The speech of the three tribes was conflated in the same way: they all spoke what would have been called *Anglisc, or "Anglish," as it were. By the earliest recorded Old English, this had changed to Englisc. In Middle English, the first vowel had already changed further to the familiar (ĭ) of today, as reflected in the occasional spellings Ingland and Inglish. Thus the record shows that the Germanic residents of what Shakespeare called "this sceptered isle" knew that they were speaking English long before they were aware that they were living in England. |
English
1. (Obsolete) The source code for a program, which may be in any language, as opposed to the linkable or executable binary produced from it by a compiler. The idea behind the term is that to a real hacker, a program written in his favourite programming language is at least as readable as English. Usage: mostly by old-time hackers, though recognisable in context.
2. The official name of the database language used by the Pick operating system, actually a sort of crufty, brain-damaged SQL with delusions of grandeur. The name permits marketroids to say "Yes, and you can program our computers in English!" to ignorant suits without quite running afoul of the truth-in-advertising laws.
["Exploring the Pick Operating System", J.E. Sisk et al, Hayden 1986].
[The Jargon File]