index card

American  

noun

index cards plural

1. a card, often relatively small, as 3 × 5 inches (7.6 × 12.7 centimeters), used in noting or recording information and usually filed in an index.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• index cards
  plural

Etymology

Origin of index card

First recorded in 1925–30

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

index card

When the NFL draft begins on Thursday night, Commissioner Roger Goodell will hardly need to glance at an index card to know that the Raiders intended to use the first overall pick on Mendoza.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 23, 2026

In an earlier iteration of our dating, I gave him a jade plant and a pink index card with instructions on how to care for it:

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 23, 2022

Photographers snapped the president holding up the outward-facing index card during a brief press availability in the Roosevelt Room to kick off the meeting.

From Washington Times ● Jun. 24, 2022

That evening, entirely unexpectedly, my mom texted me a photo of an index card with a handwritten recipe for pita bread: "Gram's pita recipe in her own handwriting. Just discovered it in my Lebanese cookbook!"

From Salon ● Mar. 18, 2022

Jessie went to the kitchen desk and got an index card.

From "The Lemonade War" by Jacqueline Davies