The language that gives a document its structure and meaning for the web. A named language rather than a concept.
Coined 1990-1991 for the nascent Web; an acronym for HyperText Markup Language — hyper- (Greek, beyond) + text (Latin texere, to weave) + markup (English, the printer's term for annotations added to a manuscript).
The structure a document offers before any style is laid on it — meaning declared in the markup itself, for whatever reads it next.