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.

—Business Week

—abbreviation API

Examples of application programming interface in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Even when the developer draws upon application programming interfaces to forge connections to existing AI agents and services that provide essential functions, there’s always a huge amount of authentication and management that has to be applied at the infrastructure level. —Adrian Bridgwater, Forbes.com, 22 July 2025

As TechRadar reports, the outage stemmed from a code issue in Service Control, part of Google’s application programming interfaces (APIs) management and policy checking system. —John Kell, Fortune, 18 June 2025

Competitive Analysis: Application & API Delivery Hand in hand with application delivery and security comes (from any vendor worth its salt) an equally exhaustive approach to application programming interface management and security alongside AI gateway functionality. —Adrian Bridgwater, Forbes.com, 16 July 2025

According to its status page, OpenAI is showing elevated error rates for its application programming interfaces (APIs) as well as ChatGPT and Sora on the morning of Tuesday, June 10. —Chad Murphy, Cincinnati Enquirer, 10 June 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