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It's really just semantics, but Merriam Webster defines a compiler as "A computer program that translates an entire set of instructions written in a higher-level symbolic language (such as C) into machine language before the instructions can be executed"

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A dictionary really isn't a great source for the exact definitions of technical words. Wikipedia does much better in this instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compiler

> A compiler is computer software that transforms computer code written in one programming language (the source language) into another programming language (the target language).

Later on it lists some classes of compilers that could be called by more specific names than just "compiler".

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