The original term for "compiler" was not restricted to compiling down to machine code. From Grace Hopper's paper "The Education of a Computer" (1952)[1]:

   Specifications for computer information, a catalogue, compiling routines, and subroutines will be given after adding another level to the block diagram. As Fig. 5 stands the mathematician must still perform all mathematical operations, relegating to the UNIVAC programming and computational operations. However, the computer information delivered by the mathematician no longer deals with numerical quantities as such. It treats of variables and constants in symbolic form together with operations upon them. The insertion of a fourth level of operation is now possible, Fig. 6. Suppose, for example, the mathematician wishes to evaluate a function and its first n derivatives. He sends the information defining the function itself to the UNIVAC. Under control of a "compiling routine of type B", in this case a differentiator, using task routines, the UNIVAC delivers the information necessary to program the computation of the function and its derivatives. From the formula for the function, the UNIVAC derives the formulas of the successive derivatives. This information processed under a compiling routine of Type A yields a program to direct the computation.

Notice the case for two "compilers": Compiler B (differentiator) compiles symbolic notation to another program, that is fed to Compiler A, which produces an executable that does the actual computation.

IMO, a better term for a compiler would have been a "translator."

[1] https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/609784.609818