Prompt Engineering Vocabulary

the input text given to a language model to guide its response

“A well-crafted prompt can dramatically improve response quality.”

Origin: Latin promptus `brought forth, visible` from promere `to bring forth`

persistent instructions that set the model's behavior and persona for an entire conversation

“The system prompt established that the assistant should respond in formal English.”

Origin: Greek systēma `organized whole` + Latin promptus

providing examples in the prompt to demonstrate desired input-output patterns

“Three examples of sentiment analysis in the prompt enabled accurate few-shot classification.”

Origin: few + shot (from `taking a shot at something`)

asking a model to perform a task without any examples

“Zero-shot translation works because the model learned language patterns during pre-training.”

Origin: zero + shot `attempt`

prompting the model to show its reasoning step-by-step before giving a final answer

“Adding 'think step by step' triggered chain-of-thought reasoning and improved accuracy.”

Origin: From the metaphor of linked reasoning steps

a security vulnerability where malicious input overrides system instructions

“The prompt injection 'ignore previous instructions' attempted to bypass safety guidelines.”

Origin: Latin promptus + injectio `a throwing in`

using early context to set expectations and influence subsequent model behavior

“Context priming with a formal example made all responses more professional.”

Origin: Latin contextus `weaving together` + prime `first, prepare`

asking the model to help design or improve prompts for itself

“Meta-prompting: 'Help me rephrase this request to get better results from you.'”

Origin: Greek meta `beyond, about` + Latin promptus

instructing the model to adopt a specific role or character to unlock different capabilities

“The persona prompt 'Act as a senior security engineer' improved code review quality.”

Origin: Latin persona `mask, character` + prompting

fine-tuning models specifically on instruction-following examples

“Instruction tuning transformed the base model into a helpful assistant.”

Origin: Latin instructio `building, arrangement` + tuning