variants
or Cobol
: a computer programming language designed for business applications
Examples of COBOL in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
This means maintaining talent that understands legacy COBOL and modern cloud architectures.
—
Ismail Amla, Forbes, 8 Jan. 2025
This early achievement would one day lead to the development of COBOL for data processors, which is still the major programming language used today.
—Ars Technica, 29 Aug. 2024
Much of the New York City subway depends on mechanical switching systems installed in the nineteen-thirties; many banks rely on software written in COBOL, a basically obsolete programming language.
—Joshua Rothman, The New Yorker, 29 Oct. 2024
The new system, which requires a porting of COBOL and Assembly code into Java, is intended to be more modern and sustainable moving forward.
—Kelly Phillips Erb, Forbes, 7 Sep. 2024
Her innovations were later folded into COBOL, the language of banking and backend systems.
—Clive Thompson, WIRED, 29 July 2024
There are hundreds of billions of lines of COBOL code running on production systems worldwide.
—Kevin Purdy, Ars Technica, 23 Aug. 2023
In its heyday, COBOL allowed Wall Street to be innovative, but as payment processors such as Stripe, Paypal, and Adyen have become the new normal, COBOL prevents our banking institutions from modernizing and represents an imminent security threat.
—Bythomas Dohmke, Fortune, 26 Sep. 2023
And that’s before the last of the COBOL generation retires.
—IEEE Spectrum, 29 Mar. 2023
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Ismail Amla, Forbes, 8 Jan. 2025
This early achievement would one day lead to the development of COBOL for data processors, which is still the major programming language used today.
—Ars Technica, 29 Aug. 2024
Much of the New York City subway depends on mechanical switching systems installed in the nineteen-thirties; many banks rely on software written in COBOL, a basically obsolete programming language.
—Joshua Rothman, The New Yorker, 29 Oct. 2024
The new system, which requires a porting of COBOL and Assembly code into Java, is intended to be more modern and sustainable moving forward.
—Kelly Phillips Erb, Forbes, 7 Sep. 2024
Her innovations were later folded into COBOL, the language of banking and backend systems.
—Clive Thompson, WIRED, 29 July 2024
There are hundreds of billions of lines of COBOL code running on production systems worldwide.
—Kevin Purdy, Ars Technica, 23 Aug. 2023
In its heyday, COBOL allowed Wall Street to be innovative, but as payment processors such as Stripe, Paypal, and Adyen have become the new normal, COBOL prevents our banking institutions from modernizing and represents an imminent security threat.
—Bythomas Dohmke, Fortune, 26 Sep. 2023
And that’s before the last of the COBOL generation retires.
—IEEE Spectrum, 29 Mar. 2023
Dictionary Entries Near COBOL
Cite this Entry
“COBOL.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/COBOL. Accessed 20 Jan. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
COBOL
noun
CO·BOL
variants
or Cobol
: a computer programming language used especially in business
Etymology
common business oriented language
Love words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
Share