magnetic stripe

American

noun

magnetic strip.
Movies. stripe.

magnetic stripe British

noun

(across the back of various types of cheque card, credit card, etc) a dark stripe of magnetic material consisting of several tracks onto which information may be coded and which may be read or written to electronically

"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 magnetic stripe

First recorded in 1950–55

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:

magnetic stripe

Any type of payment card with a magnetic stripe is potentially at risk, authorities say, but EBT cards are the softest targets.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 20, 2026

One downside to that, he suggests, is that magnetic stripe failures and fraud are currently well understood.

From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2024

Banks would issue the cards, not Visa, and they were mandated to add the magnetic stripe to their cards.

From New York Times ● Aug. 5, 2022

The card itself is just a number encoded on a magnetic stripe.

From The Verge ● Aug. 10, 2016

Another application of induction is found on the magnetic stripe on the back of your personal credit card as used at the grocery store or the ATM machine.

From Textbooks ● Aug. 12, 2015

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