ONLINE Definition & Meaning

In today’s connected culture, few words are as relevant to daily life as online. He also conjectures that an online/offline distinction may be seen by people as “rather quaint and not quite comprehensible” within 10 years. The distinction between what is considered online and what is considered offline has become a subject of study in the field of sociology.

Pairs of Commonly Confused Words

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Since at least 1950, in computing, the terms on-line and off-line have been used to refer to whether machines, including computers and peripheral devices, are connected or not. The term “offline” is sometimes used interchangeably with the acronym “IRL”, meaning “in real life”, as well as about office meetings in person wherein a formal, high-concentration meeting may have matters taken “offline” to a more relaxed moment away from the “online” high-stress meeting. Today, “online” most commonly describes a device that is connected to the internet. While the adjective officially describes a connection to any computer network, it’s almost always used these days to mean “on the Internet.” The word online has been around since 1950.

Popular in Grammar & Usage

Parkins is one of many worried homeowners who have turned to the sometimes rowdy online forum for honest opinions on why their listing isn’t attracting buyers. Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. You build fun, we make sure the world gets to play it. If you’re a developer with a game the world needs to see, check out Poki for Developers. Our team tests, tinkers, and genuinely enjoys every title because we believe that play is how we learn. It all sweepstakes casino began in 2014, when we set out to make great games free and open to all.

Slater asserts that there are legal and regulatory pressures to reduce the distinction between online and offline, with a “general tendency to assimilate online to offline and erase the distinction,” stressing, however, that this does not mean that online relationships are being reduced to pre-existing offline relationships. This distinction between online and offline is sometimes inverted, with online concepts being used to define and to explain offline activities, rather than (as per the conventions of the desktop metaphor with its desktops, trash cans, folders, and so forth) the other way around. To support his argument that the distinctions in relationships are more complex than a simple dichotomy of online versus offline, he observes that some people draw no distinction between an online relationship, such as indulging in cybersex, and an offline relationship, such as being pen pals. The distinction between online and offline is conventionally seen as the distinction between computer-mediated communication and face-to-face communication (e.g., face time), respectively. Online and offline distinctions have been generalised from computing and telecommunication into the field of human interpersonal relationships. In the same context, the person’s availability is termed as online and non-availability is termed as offline.

• When the sync master commences playback, the online device automatically synchronizes itself to the master and commences playing from the same point in the recording.
• For two systems to communicate over the internet, both must be online.
• In the context of file systems, online and offline are synonymous with mounted and not mounted.
• In this post, I will compare on-line vs online.

online Intermediate English

If you cannot access websites or check your email from your laptop, it may be offline. The term applies to various electronics, including computers, smartphones, smart TVs, gaming consoles, and IoT devices. When you’re online, you are using a computer or other device that’s connected to the Internet. And we don’t just host online games, we play them too. Since online basically means connected, you can remember that online is the better version.

The chart below, which graphs online vs. on-line over time, illustrates this trend. On-line was originally more popular, but online has since surpassed it in total usage. It’s slightly newer, although both versions originated in the late 20th century with the advent of widespread personal computing. Online is the now-standard spelling of the word.

We strive for accuracy and simplicity with every definition we publish. Our goal is to explain computer terminology in a way that is easy to understand. The definition of Online on this page is an original definition written by the authors of TechTerms.com. For example, if you connect your laptop to a wireless router, the computer will indicate it is connected via Wi-Fi. Add online to one of your lists below, or create a new one. Learn a new word every day.

On-line is the older variation of these two words that is quickly falling out of common use. Here are a few examples of the word’s use as an adjective, Plus, I will show you a helpful memory tool that will allow you to choose on-line or online in your own writing. I will use each of these words in at least one example sentence, so you can see them in context. In this post, I will compare on-line vs online.

Both on-line and online are correct versions of this term. In both usages, it refers to the state of being connected to a network. Likewise, offline storage is computer data storage that has no connection to the other systems until a connection is deliberately made. More recently, the Internet Archive announced an offline server project intended to provide access to material on inexpensive servers that can be updated using USB sticks and SD cards.