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Actually Wikipedia on the disambiguation page says that compiliation is: "In computer programming, the translation of source code into object code by a compiler."

On the main wikipedia page, you cut off the full definition: "A compiler is a computer program (or set of programs) that transforms source code written in a programming language (the source language) into another computer language (the target language, often having a binary form known as object code). The most common reason for wanting to transform source code is to create an executable program."

Note how it says "the target language, often having a binary form known as object code." and "The most common reason for wanting to transform source code is to create an executable program."

If you then go down into the description, you'll see: "The front end checks whether the program is correctly written in terms of the programming language syntax and semantics. Here legal and illegal programs are recognized. Errors are reported, if any, in a useful way. Type checking is also performed by collecting type information. The frontend then generates an intermediate representation or IR of the source code for processing by the middle-end.

The middle end is where optimization takes place. Typical transformations for optimization are removal of useless or unreachable code, discovery and propagation of constant values, relocation of computation to a less frequently executed place (e.g., out of a loop), or specialization of computation based on the context. The middle-end generates another IR for the following backend. Most optimization efforts are focused on this part.

The back end is responsible for translating the IR from the middle-end into assembly code. The target instruction(s) are chosen for each IR instruction. Register allocation assigns processor registers for the program variables where possible. The backend utilizes the hardware by figuring out how to keep parallel execution units busy, filling delay slots, and so on. Although most algorithms for optimization are in NP, heuristic techniques are well-developed."

So, just stating that it is "a computer program that transforms source code written in a programming language into another computer language" is inadequate. There is more to it than that, and unfortunately so many just don't get it.