We don't normally call hardware or firmware implementations an 'interpreter'.
Almost all execution techniques include some combination of compilation and interpretation. Even some ASTs include aspects of transformation to construct them from the source code, which we could call a compiler. Native compilers sometimes have to interpret metadata to do things like roll forward for deoptimisation.
But most people in the field would describe CPython firmly as an 'interpreter'.
Almost all execution techniques include some combination of compilation and interpretation. Even some ASTs include aspects of transformation to construct them from the source code, which we could call a compiler. Native compilers sometimes have to interpret metadata to do things like roll forward for deoptimisation.
But most people in the field would describe CPython firmly as an 'interpreter'.