 The word IMMEDIATE marks the most recent colon definition as an immediate word, effectively replacing its compilation semantics with its interpretation semantics. Immediate words are normally executed during compilation, not compiled but this can be overridden by the programmer, in either state .; is an example of an immediate word. In ANS Forth, the word POSTPONE takes a name as a parameter and appends the compilation semantics of the named word to the current definition even if the word was marked immediate. Forth-83 defined separate words COMPILE and [COMPILE] to force the compilation of non-immediate and immediate words, respectively.
