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That is absolutely not true. Just because early compilers acted more like linker/loader doesn't mean they used the word compiler to mean "linker". When the term was coined it absolutely meant translating mathematical formulas into machine code. Compiler very much had the same meaning it has today.

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Sorry that's not my understanding of the history - early compilers were more like what we'd call today template compilers - linking blocks of pre-defined machine code together.

Yes, that is very much what they were. However, they used the term compiler in very much the same way it's used today. It didn't mean something different. The concept of the "compiler" was to translate mathematical symbols (or predefined machine code representing that math) and later English like words into programs a machine could execute.

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