microfiche
Americannoun
-
microfiche,
plural
-
microfiches
plural
verb (used with object)
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of microfiche
First recorded in 1945–50; micro- + French fiche “small card”
Explanation
Microfiche is a type of film that's used to store information. If you're doing research in very old newspapers, your library might have them available on microfiche. Microfiche is basically tiny photographs of old, fragile materials like journals, magazines, and newspapers. Before information began to be saved electronically on computers, microfiche was one way to save space in archives and libraries — instead of shelves full of journals, they could store drawers of thin photographic film containing an enormous amount of information. To view microfiche, you need a special magnifying device. Microfiche comes from French roots meaning "small slip of paper."
Vocabulary lists containing microfiche
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:
Detectives went hunting for the Help Wanted ad, hunkered over the microfiche machine at the newspaper’s downtown office.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 31, 2025
Decades of police records stored as microfiche were transcribed into three, hefty logbooks for detectives to painstakingly examine.
From BBC ● Sep. 29, 2022
I eventually found an Orthodox Jewish ophthalmologist who shared his idea for a thriller where the microfiche was hidden in the Hasidic spy's eye.
From Salon ● Jun. 18, 2022
He said the process will be even more difficult when they get beyond the electronic court record, and have to confirm older convictions on microfiche.
From Seattle Times ● May 31, 2022
I couldn’t use the Internet; the teacher made me go to the library and use microfiche, which is like trying to read the U.S.
From "It’s Kind of a Funny Story" by Ned Vizzini
Working only with his wife, Grazia, Lotoro had created Last Musik, an institute he has self-funded for three decades, with a repertoire of 4,000 papers and 13,000 microfiches of music sheets, letters, drawings and photos.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 13, 2018
In some ways, Spotlight is a paean to journalism’s archaic methods, as it lovingly dwells on microfiches, card indexes, picture folders and clippings files.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 21, 2016
I'm old enough to remember card catalogs, microfiches, and needing to go to a library to find what I needed--and even then I was sometimes disappointed.
From Inc ● Jan. 11, 2013
But delving into those records has itself sometimes been an adventure, requiring searches through indexes, microfiches, file cards and folders in Midtown Manhattan; Long Island City, Queens; and Jerusalem.
From New York Times ● Mar. 3, 2012
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.
