What is Microsoft intermediate language (MSIL)?

Common Intermediate Language (CIL) (formerly called Microsoft Intermediate Language or MSIL) is the lowest-level human-readable programming language in the Common Language Infrastructure and in the .NET Framework. Languages which target the .NET Framework compile to CIL, which is assembled into bytecode. CIL resembles an object-oriented assembly language, and is entirely stack-based. It is executed by a virtual machine. The primary .NET languages are C#, Visual Basic .NET, C++/CLI, and J#.