COBOL

Definition: COBOL

COBOL

Noun

1. COmmon Business Oriented Language.

Specialty Definition: COBOL

Domain	Definition
Computing	COBOL /koh'bol/ n. [COmmon Business-Oriented Language] (Synonymous with evil.) A weak, verbose, and flabby language used by card wallopers to do boring mindless things on dinosaur mainframes. Hackers believe that all COBOL programmers are suits or code grinders, and no self-respecting hacker will ever admit to having learned the language. Its very name is seldom uttered without ritual expressions of disgust or horror. One popular one is Edsger W. Dijkstra's famous observation that "The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense." (from "Selected Writings on Computing: A Personal Perspective") See also fear and loathing, software rot. Source: Jargon File.
Census	(Common Business Oriented Language) A high level programming language used in business applications. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Abbreviations & Acronyms: COBOL

The following table is compiled from various sources, across various languages. When English abbreviations or acronyms come from a non-English source, this is noted.
Entry	Source	Expression	Field
COBOL	English	Common Business oriented language	Computing
CODACOP	English	Cobol Data Communication Philips	N/A
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

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Crosswords: COBOL

Specialty definitions using "COBOL": ADD 1 TO COBOL GIVING COBOL, AIr MAterial COmmand compiler, AS/400, AS400 ♦ Basic COBOL ♦ CA-Telon, COBOL-1961 Extended, Cobol-compiler, Codasyl, COmmon Business Oriented Language, Compact COBOL ♦ database manager, DETAB ♦ fear and loathing, flowchart ♦ GECOM, goto, Grace Hopper ♦ HPcode ♦ IBM 1620, IDS/I, Interactive Data Entry/Access ♦ JCL, Job Control Language ♦ languages of choice, like kicking dead whales down the beach ♦ NAK ♦ Rapidwrite, Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal, Recursive Macro Actuated Generator, Required-COBOL ♦ SQL Module Language, String Oriented Symbolic Language, Suzie COBOL ♦ Things Hackers Detest and Avoid, third generation language ♦ WATBOL. (references)

Non-English Usage: "COBOL" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses.

Portuguese (COBOL, COmmon Business Oriented Language), Turkish (cobol).

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Modern Usage: COBOL

Domain	Usage
Clever	I know UNIX, PASCAL, C, FORTRAN, COBOL, and nineteen other high-tech words. (references; author: unknown)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Commercial Usage: COBOL

Domain	Title
Books	Vsam for the Cobol Programmer: Concepts, Cobol, Jcl, Idcams (reference) (more book examples)

High Tech	Cobol Set for Aix 1.0 (reference) Visualage Cobol Enterprise 2.2 (reference) Visualage for Cobol Test for OS/2 1.2 (reference) (more camera examples; more video game examples; more computer examples; more electronic examples; more software examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Usage Frequency: COBOL

"COBOL" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 72.15% of the time. "COBOL" is used about 79 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Noun (singular)	72.15%	57	44,859
Noun (proper)	13.92%	11	106,044
Lexical Verb (base form)	11.39%	9	117,287
Noun (common)	2.53%	2	245,945
Total	100.00%	79	N/A

Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.

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Expressions: COBOL

Expressions using "COBOL": add 1 TO COBOL GIVING COBOL ♦ basic COBOL ♦ cobol fingers ♦ compact COBOL ♦ Suzie COBOL. Additional references.
Hyphenated Usage
	Beginning with "COBOL": COBOL-1961 Extended, cobol-based, Cobol-compiler, Cobol-to-c, Cobol-to-unix.
	Ending with "COBOL": Required-COBOL, Rpg-to-cobol.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Frequency of Internet Keywords: COBOL

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Expression	Frequency per Day	Expression	Frequency per Day
cobol	556	as 400 cobol	10
cobol job	61	micro focus cobol	10
cobol compiler	51	cobol development	9
microfocus cobol	39	cobol downloads	9
cobol db2	26	visual cobol	9
cobol programming	25	cobol program	9
db2 for the cobol programmer	24	cobol pc	8
cobol tutorial	23	application cobol	8
cobol programmer	22	learn cobol	8
cobol training	17	odbc cobol	8
fujitsu cobol	16	cobol to xml	8
history of cobol	15	cobol development tool	7
cobol compiler free	15	cobol free	7
cobol java	15	cobol power	7
cobol job programmer	14	85 cobol	7
cobol rm	14	cobol consulting	6
cobol linux	13	cobol database	6
cobol ii	11	cobol language	6
cobol interview question	11	.net cobol	6
cobol editor	10	cobol code source	6
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Modern Translation: COBOL

Language		Translations for "COBOL"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Danish		COBOL (COmmon Business Oriented Language). (various references)

Dutch		COBOL (COmmon Business Oriented Language). (various references)

Finnish		COBOL (COmmon Business Oriented Language). (various references)

French		COBOL (COmmon Business Oriented Language). (various references)

German		COmmon Business Oriented Language (COmmon Business Oriented Language), COBOL (COmmon Business Oriented Language). (various references)

Greek		COBOL (COmmon Business Oriented Language). (various references)

Italian		COBOL (COmmon Business Oriented Language). (various references)

Japanese Kanji		コペルニクス的転回 (a commercial, cohort, coma, command, command module, commando, commercial art, commercial base, commercial design, commercial film, commercial jingle, commercial message, commercial package, commercial paper, commercial song, commercialism, Common Business Oriented Language, Copernican revolution, copolymer, frame in a film or video). (various references)

Japanese Katakana		コボル (Common Business Oriented Language). (various references)

Pig Latin		obolcay

Portuguese		COBOL (COmmon Business Oriented Language). (various references)

Russian		кобол. (various references)

Spanish		COBOL (COmmon Business Oriented Language). (various references)

Swedish		Cobol (COmmon Business Oriented Language). (various references)

Turkish		cobol, bilgisayar dili (computer language, machine language). (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

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Derivations & Misspellings: COBOL

Derivations
	Words containing "COBOL": cocobola, cocobolas, cocobolo, cocobolos. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"COBOL" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: acubol, Cbiol, cobil, Conbloc, Scobell, Tobol. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

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Anagrams: COBOL

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "b-c-l-o-o"
	-1 letter: bloc, bolo, cool, lobo, loco, obol.
	-2 letters: boo, cob, col, coo, lob, loo.
	-3 letters: bo, lo.
	Words containing the letters "b-c-l-o-o"
	+1 letter: colobi.
	+2 letters: bicolor, brocoli, coalbox, colobus, coulomb, lockbox, subcool.
	+3 letters: bicolors, bicolour, biologic, bollocks, booklice, bootlace, bootlick, borecole, broccoli, brocolis, caboodle, clubfoot, clubroom, clubroot, cocobola, cocobolo, coloboma, conglobe, cookable, coulombs, outclomb, subcools.
	+4 letters: bicolored, bicolours, biologics, biosocial, blackwood, blowtorch, bootblack, bootlaces, bootlicks, borecoles, broccolis, caboodles, calaboose, clubrooms, clubroots, coalboxes, cobaltous, cocobolas, cocobolos, coldblood, colobuses, colorable, colorably, colorbred, conglobed, conglobes, coulombic, lobectomy, lobscouse, lockboxes, lyophobic, obsolesce, roadblock, schoolbag, schoolboy, subcolony, subcooled, woodblock.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.