profile
n. 1. A control file for a program, esp. a text file
automatically read from each user's home directory and intended to
be easily modified by the user in order to customize the program's
behavior. Used to avoid
hardcoded choices. 2. [techspeak] A
report on the amounts of time spent in each routine of a program,
used to find and
tune away the
hot spots in it. This sense
is often verbed. Some profiling modes report units other than time
(such as call counts) and/or report at granularities other than
per-routine, but the idea is similar.