'Software' was coined in 1958 by John Tukey — a playful contrast with 'hardware.' French coined 'logiciel.'
The programs and operating information used by a computer, as distinguished from the physical hardware.
Coined by the mathematician and statistician John Tukey in a 1958 article in American Mathematical Monthly (published 1960), as a deliberate contrast with 'hardware' — the tangible machinery of a computer versus its intangible instructions. The compound joins two Old English words: 'soft' from Old English 'sōfte' (gentle, easy, agreeable), from Proto-Germanic *samftijaz (fitting, level, agreeable), from PIE *sem- (one, together, fitting as one); and 'ware' from Old English 'waru' (goods, merchandise, articles of trade), from Proto-Germanic *warō (goods, wares), from PIE *wer- (to perceive, to watch over, hence 'to guard, to be wary of'). Software is thus etymologically 'gentle goods' or 'easy merchandise' — a surprisingly apt description of
French rejected the English word 'software' and coined 'logiciel' (from 'logique' + '-iel') — literally 'logic-thing.' The French government's language commission actively promotes native alternatives to English tech terms. Meanwhile, 'hardware' and 'software' have been borrowed wholesale into German, Spanish, Japanese, and dozens of other languages.