application programming interface

noun

variants or less commonly application program interface

computing

: a set of rules that allows programmers to develop software for a particular operating system without having to be completely familiar with that operating system

To fix this problem, trustbusters have installed a provision forcing Microsoft to disclose more information about its so-called application programming interfaces, or APIs.

—Businessweek

—abbreviation API

Examples of application programming interface in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

While some may argue that the idea of renting out compute (infrastructure-as-a-service) will become less relevant as companies like Alphabet instead turn to selling their application programming interface (API) in a move toward a model-as-a-service (MaaS) business model. —Zev Fima, CNBC, 25 Nov. 2025

Most notably for academic researchers, Musk curtailed access to X’s application programming interface, or API, the software that allowed researchers to study the platform on a massive scale by examining the full firehose of posts. —Kevin Collier, NBC news, 25 Nov. 2025

The fake Windows update is merely being displayed from the internet domain, and abusing the Fullscreen application programming interface (API) in browsers to take over the entire screen space. —PC Magazine, 12 Nov. 2025

As environments become more isolated, security teams need high-visibility solutions that work across containers, workloads, and application programming interfaces (APIs). —Wyles Daniel, USA Today, 28 Oct. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1968, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for application programming interface

• abase
• airspace
• apace
• backspace
• biface
• birthplace
• blackface
• boldface
• bookcase
• braincase
• briefcase
• carcase