homoiconic

H4O1M3O1I1C3O1N1I1C3

adjective

Exhibiting homoiconicity.

OriginEnglish iconic ← Ancient Greek ὁμός (homós) ← Proto-Hellenic *homós →
Scrabble 19
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Meanings

adjectivehomoiconic (not comparable)
  1. not comparablecomputingExhibiting homoiconicity.

    Clojure and other languages from the Lisp family are homoiconic. In a homoiconic language, the source code of a program is represented as a plain data structure.

    2017, Eduardo Diaz, Shantanu Kumar, Akhil Wali, Clojure: High Performance JVM Programming, Packt Publishing Ltd, →ISBN, page 392
    1 more example

    Instead, the homoiconic paradigm draws from the mathematics of computability theory. […] In the case of a homoiconic programming language, the program processes itself, performing mechanical reductions on the application until there is nothing left except the answer.

    2015, Robert Fischer, Java Closures and Lambda, Apress, →ISBN, page 190

Origin

  1. Proto-Indo-European*sem-
  2. Proto-Indo-European*somHós
  3. Proto-Hellenic*homós
  4. Ancient Greekὁμός (homós)
  5. Englishhomo-
  6. Englishiconic
  7. Englishhomoiconic

From homo- (“self-”) + iconic (“representing”).

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

homoiconic. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/homoiconic

MLA

“homoiconic.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/homoiconic. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “homoiconic,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/homoiconic.

Source: homoiconic on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.