Prompting glossary
Prompt engineering
Writing instructions that get consistent, useful answers.
What it means
Prompt engineering is the habit of writing AI instructions on purpose instead of by accident: naming the audience, the goal, the tone, the format and the limits, then adjusting based on what came back. It is far closer to briefing a new assistant than to programming.
Also called
prompt engineer, prompt writing
How to use this in practice
Knowing the word is the easy half. The useful half is writing the instruction so the AI does not have to guess: say who it should act as, give it the background it cannot know, state the outcome you want, set the limits, and name the format the answer should come back in. That is the same structure behind every template in the free prompt library.
Want prompts written for your business instead of definitions?