ETYM French, from Latin codex, caudex, the stock or stem of a tree, a board or tablet of wood smeared over with wax, on which the ancients originally wrote; hence, a book, a writing.
1. A set of rules or principles or laws especially written ones; SYN. codification.
2. A coding system used for transmitting messages requiring brevity or secrecy.
3. (Computer science) The symbolic arrangement of data or instructions in a computer program or the set of such instructions; SYN. computer code.
In law, the body of a country’s civil or criminal law. The Code Napoléon in France 1804–10 was widely copied in European countries with civil law systems.