Source : WordNet®

macro
     adj : very large in scale or scope or capability; "`macro' in the
           word `macroscopic' is a combining form"

macro
     n : a single computer instruction that results in a series of
         instructions in machine language [syn: {macro instruction}]

Source : Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing

MACRO
     
        1. Assembly language for {VAX/VMS}.
     
        2. {PL/I}-like language with extensions for string processing.
        "MACRO: A Programming Language", S.R. Greenwood, SIGPLAN
        Notices 14(9):80-91 (Sep 1979).
     
        [{Jargon File}]

macro-
     
        Prefix large.  Opposite of {micro-}.  In the mainstream and
        among other technical cultures (for example, medical people)
        this competes with the prefix {mega-}, but hackers tend to
        restrict the latter to quantification.
     
        [{Jargon File}]

macro
     
        A name (possibly followed by a {formal argument} list) that is
        equated to a text or symbolic expression to which it is to be
        expanded (possibly with the substitution of {actual
        arguments}) by a macro expander.
     
        The term "macro" originated in early {assembler}s, which
        encouraged the use of macros as a structuring and
        information-hiding device.  During the early 1970s, macro
        assemblers became ubiquitous, and sometimes quite as powerful
        and expensive as {HLL}s, only to fall from favour as improving
        {compiler} technology marginalised {assembly language}
        programming (see {languages of choice}).  Nowadays the term is
        most often used in connection with the {C preprocessor},
        {Lisp}, or one of several special-purpose languages built
        around a macro-expansion facility (such as {TeX} or {Unix}'s
        {troff} suite).
     
        Indeed, the meaning has drifted enough that the collective
        "macros" is now sometimes used for code in any special-purpose
        application control language (whether or not the language is
        actually translated by text expansion), and for macro-like
        entities such as the "keyboard macros" supported in some text
        editors (and {PC} {TSR}s or {Macintosh} INIT/CDEV keyboard
        enhancers).
     
        (1994-12-06)