variable-length code
nounA variable-length code is a way of using short codes for common things and longer codes for rare things.
Morse code is a variable-length code because the letter E is just one dot while other letters take more signals.
OTHER MEANINGS
2. A coding scheme in which different symbols are represented by codewords of different bit lengths.
The compression algorithm uses a variable-length code to shrink the file size.
3. A prefix-free code where no codeword is a prefix of another, allowing unambiguous decoding.
Huffman coding produces an optimal variable-length code for a given set of symbol frequencies.
4. A method of encoding where the number of bits per character depends on how often that character appears.
In a variable-length code, frequent letters get fewer bits than rare ones.