Etymology of "compiler" (computer term)

Solution 1:

Wikipedia gives the evolution of the term:

Towards the end of the 1950s, machine-independent programming languages were first proposed. Subsequently several experimental compilers were developed. The first compiler was written by Grace Hopper, in 1952, for the A-0 programming language.The A-0 functioned more as a loader or linker than the modern notion of a compiler. The first autocode and its compiler were developed by Alick Glennie in 1952 for the Mark 1 computer at the University of Manchester and is considered by some to be the first compiled programming language. The FORTRAN team led by John Backus at IBM is generally credited as having introduced the first complete compiler in 1957. COBOL was an early language to be compiled on multiple architectures, in 1960.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compiler#History

The earliest recorded use in the OED is from 1953:

1953 Computers & Automation May 3 If a compiling routine or compiler is used, when a word is examined, the required subroutine is transcribed..into a running program.

More specifically, it's from an article called "Compiling Routines" by Grace Hopper. For more info and an extract of exactly what Hopper meant by compiling -- copying subroutines around and adjusting memory locations -- see http://longstreet.typepad.com/thesciencebookstore/2014/09/jf-grace-hopper-1953-grace-murray-hopper-compiling-routines-incomputers-and-automation-volume-2-no4-may-1953-11.html

Solution 2:

An addition source regarding the origin the term itself:

Between October of 1951 a and May of 1952 I wrote a compiler. Now, there was a curious thing about it: it wasn't what you'd call one today, and it wasn't what you'd call a "language" today. It was a series of specifications. For each subroutine you wrote some specs. The reason it got called a compiler was that each subroutine was given a "call word," because the subroutines were in a library, and when you pull stuff out of a library you compile things. It's as simple as that.

Grace M. Hopper; Keynote Address to the ACM SIGPLAN History of Programming Languages (HOPL) Conference (June 1-3, 1978), in Richard L. Wexelblat (ed.); History of Programming Languages, p.10 (1981)