interpreter

The sequence of events when running an interpreter on a high-level language program. Instructions are translated one at a time, making the process a slow one; however, interpreted programs do not need to be compiled and may be executed immediately.

In computing, a program that translates and executes a program written in a high-level language. Unlike a compiler, which produces a complete machine-code translation of the high-level program in one operation, an interpreter translates the source program, instruction by instruction, each time that program is run.

Because each instruction must be translated each time the source program is run, interpreted programs run far more slowly than do compiled programs. However, unlike compiled programs, they can be executed immediately without waiting for an intermediate compilation stage.