[chrisseaton]

I'd defend the word 'transpiler' and I did my masters and PhD on language implementation, and that's where I work professionally now, so I'm not ignorant of compilers.

I think it implies a translation from one high level language to another (not that 'high level' is well defined either), with only desugaring and maybe type-checking - no real lowering or optimisations. That's a useful subset of compilers, so can have its own word I believe.

[pjmlp]

So for you a C compiler that follows the initial workflow is a transpiler?

Or an Eiffel implementation, as another example.

[chrisseaton]

I think a transpiler is a compiler that does a high-level to high-level translation with only a few simple transformations and almost no optimisations and produces relatively readable output.

If a C or Eiffel compiler meets that definition then yes. I'd still call it a compiler, but I would also call it a transpiler.

If you're offended by the term transpiler because all transpilers are also compilers, then I don't know why you wouldn't also be offended by the term compiler because all compilers are also 'programs', so lets just call everything a 'program'.

[pjmlp]

Apparently I am the one wrong here, given the 1964 paper link provided by Ded7xSEoPKYNsDd.

Still the word sounds strange.