MSIL is the Microsoft Intermediate Language, it provides instructions for calling methods, storing and initializing values, memory handling, exception handling and so on. All the .NET codes are first compiled to Intermediate Language.

MSIL stands for Microsoft Intermediate Language. It’s also known as Intermediate Language (IL) or Common Intermediate Language (CIL). MSIL is a platform-independent, CPU-independent set of instructions that can be efficiently converted to native code.

When you compile a .NET program, the source code is converted into MSIL. MSIL is not directly executable by the CPU; instead, it’s executed by the Common Language Runtime (CLR), which is a part of the .NET Framework. The CLR’s Just-In-Time (JIT) compiler then converts MSIL into native code that is specific to the CPU architecture it’s running on.

So, in essence, MSIL serves as an intermediary language between the high-level source code and the machine code executed by the CPU, enabling .NET programs to be executed in a managed environment provided by the CLR.