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

“The idea that it’s not prior restraint because a bunch of information is contained in a flash drive ignores the 1st Amendment protection of information,” she said.

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 4, 2023

He is an android — apparently, he can just plug himself in to the network like a flash drive.

From New York Times • Apr. 20, 2023

Once Brooklyn accessed the system, she pulled out a flash drive containing the virus created by the computer techs at MI6.

From "City Spies" by James Ponti

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