bar code

British  

noun

1. Also called: Universal Product Code.   UPC.  commerce a machine-readable arrangement of numbers and parallel lines of different widths printed on a package, which can be electronically scanned at a checkout to register the price of the goods and to activate computer stock-checking and reordering

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bar code Cultural  

1. A series of parallel lines that can be read by an optical scanner and decoded by a computer into usable information. The ten-line Universal Product Code (UPC) on the packaging of retail items is an example of this. The key to this code is the variation in line thickness and separation.

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Example Sentences

The Montreal resident uses an app called Nuj that has him scan the bar code on a shampoo bottle in his bathroom.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 4, 2026

Customers use the new postboxes by scanning a bar code on the parcel and dropping it into a drawer - all powered by small solar panels on the top of the box.

From BBC • Apr. 10, 2025

The machines scan the bar code on the back of the membership card, showing the membership record, including photo and status.

From Seattle Times • Jan. 18, 2024

That DNA will act as a kind of minuscule bar code, nestling amid the puffy fibers as they are shuttled to factories in India.

From New York Times • Apr. 7, 2023

In fact, he’d spent many happy hours on bar code websites where geeks gathered to compare, discuss, and trade codes and information.

From "Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho" by Jon Katz