noise word

English

Noun

noise word (plural noise words)

1. (programming) A word that may be included in source code for clarity but does not change the meaning.
   • 1975, Terrence W. Pratt, Programming Languages: Design and Implementation, page 381:

     For example, in the COBOL goto statement, written GO TO <label>, the keyword GO is required, but TO is an optional noise word which carries no information and is used only to improve readability.

2. (computing) A stop word, one ignored in search queries etc.