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flash drive

American

Trademark, ThumbDrive, or flashdrive

noun

Computers.

a very small, portable, solid-state hard drive that can be inserted into a USB port for storage and retrieval of data.

flash drive British

noun

a pocket-sized portable computer hard drive and data storage device See also key drive pen drive thumb drive USB drive

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of flash drive

First recorded in 1990–95

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Meanwhile, Sandisk released a 1-terabyte $128 USB-C flash drive so small you can just leave it plugged in.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 11, 2026

A year after being handed a 20-year ban on filmmaking he dispatched a documentary with the title "This is Not a Film" to the Cannes Festival on a flash drive stashed in a cake.

From Barron's • Dec. 1, 2025

If you don’t want to haul a whole desktop PC with you, store copies of vital documents in the cloud or on a flash drive.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 8, 2025

The one they used cost about $1000, is the size of a cigarette lighter and plugs into a laptop like a flash drive.

From New York Times • May 15, 2023

While the data and video on the Third Gate was copying over to my flash drive, I continued to delve deeper into the Sixer database.

From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023