An abbreviation for Intermediate Language, which is the compiled representation of an application targeted to a specific machine.

The _(Microsoft) _(.NET) _(CLR) has co-opted this term to signify its standard intermediate language (which has a syntax). Microsoft's IL is commonly compared to _(Java) _(VM) _(bytecode), but there are significant differences, mainly in that it is designed to be compiled by a _(JIT) into a machine-executable format, whereas bytecode is intended to be executed directly by a _(Virtual Machine). It should be noted that Java bytecode is <I>usually</I> compiled by a JIT anyway for performance reasons, and it would be <I>possible</I> to run IL as an interpreted language, but it is difficult to imagine why anyone would want to do this.