S-Expression

Noun · Development

Definitions

  1. A notation for nested list-structured data originating from Lisp, where expressions are written as parenthesized prefix lists such as (+ 1 2), serving as both code and data representation.

    In plain English: The parentheses-heavy way Lisp languages write everything — code, data, you name it — as nested lists inside parentheses.

    Example: "In Clojure, (map inc [1 2 3]) is an s-expression that increments every element."

Related Terms