laptop
Americannoun
-
laptops
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of laptop
Explanation
Laptop is short for laptop computer. The big computer on your desk is a desktop, and the small one on your lap is a laptop. See what they did there? Now shoo that lapdog and get to work! There are other kinds of portable computers, but a laptop usually has a screen that folds over the keyboard when you’re not using it. The earliest versions of laptops were made in the 1970s, and they've become lighter, thinner, more portable, and much more popular since then. The word laptop was coined in 1984, based on — you guessed it — desktop, which describes the heavier, non-portable computer.
Vocabulary lists containing laptop
Computer Science and Technology - Introductory
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Units 2–3
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Computer Terms
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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.
See Examples For:
At the event, Microsoft touted its Surface laptop, which runs on Nvidia systems and shows how the company is seeking to capitalize on AI beyond just software and the cloud.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 9, 2026
Groskop also advises putting a post-it note on your laptop camera and reminding yourself to look there and not at people on the screen.
From BBC ● Oct. 5, 2026
Artificial intelligence has jumped out of the laptop and into the campaign trail.
From Barron's ● Oct. 5, 2026
Federal agents in windbreakers seized his laptop and ordered the company’s IT staff to copy the company’s internal servers.
From Salon ● Sep. 23, 2026
The first thing she did was run a few tests of her own to make sure the people from Sinclair Scientifica hadn’t planted any software on the laptop to spy on them.
From "City Spies" by James Ponti
Microsoft has been working on building "AI PCs" since at least 2024, when its laptops were powered by Qualcomm chips.
From Barron's ● Oct. 7, 2026
That amount of computing power is equivalent to running five million laptops at the same time for an entire year.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 3, 2026
In Baghdad, young professionals sipped iced coffee and typed on laptops in the exclusive Karrada neighborhood on a recent, seemingly peaceful day.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 30, 2026
On Navarrete’s desk were two Mac laptops and another computer, all logged into immigration courts across the Southland.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 3, 2026
Our ACT prep books and laptops are spread out around us on my bedroom floor.
From "On the Come Up" by Angie Thomas
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
