English
software
Origin unknown. Software was coined in 1958 by John Tukey from soft + -ware, by contrast with hardware.
Formed from soft + -ware
The story
Coined by John Tukey in 1958. The earlier sense of software to mean tangible products with a soft texture may have fallen out of common usage before the computing sense was created.
Today it means
noun Encoded computer instructions, usually modifiable (unless stored in some form of unalterable memory such as ROM).
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / software