photo
noun
photo
1 American
[foh-toh]
/ ˈfoʊ toʊ /
photo-
2
American
photo-
1
British
combining form
-
of, relating to, or produced by light
photosynthesis
-
indicating a photographic process
photolithography
photo
2
British
/ ˈfəʊtəʊ /
noun
photo–
Scientific
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of photo1
First recorded in 1855–60; shortened form of photograph
Origin of photo-2
< Greek, combining form of phôs (genitive phōtós )
Explanation
Snap a picture with your camera and you get a photo, a recorded image made using light. To get a passport, driver's license, or school I.D., you need to have your photo taken. The word photo is short for photograph, a word whose Greek roots mean "written in light." It only took about 20 years after the invention of photographs for people to start using the colloquial (and quicker) photo. If you haven't visited a photo booth with your best friend, you really should; you'll leave with a strip of wonderfully silly photos of the two of you.
Vocabulary lists containing photo
Florida's B.E.S.T. Roots: photo
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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:
Boca Juniors posted a photo on X of its midfielder Santiago Ascacibar celebrating a goal and joking that his aura was unbeatable.
From Barron's ● Aug. 22, 2026
"When my husband sat down and showed me the photo, I was relieved," she says.
From BBC ● Aug. 19, 2026
Mary Harris: I think of you as a photo negative of Charlie Kirk.
From Slate ● Aug. 19, 2026
Some were even trying to trade photo cards of their favorite idols, Nataly Salazar, 21, said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 17, 2026
A minute later, another photo came in, this one of a solid cream sweater with a zipper at the collar, light blue jeans, and brown shoes.
From "Bye Forever, I Guess" by Jodi Meadows
It is important to develop alternative methods based on photo- and electrocatalysis, taking advantage of the sustainable solar energy and abundance of omnipresent water.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 25, 2024
Still, the rest of the ByteDance portfolio is no joke, encompassing various games, photo- and video-editing tools, news aggregators, and even virtual reality software across continents.
From Slate ● Mar. 22, 2023
They welcomed daughter True in April 2018 — just as a photo- and video-fueled cheating scandal involving Thompson and another woman hit the internet.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 4, 2022
In addition to the social network Facebook, Meta also owns the photo- and video-sharing platform Instagram as well as the messaging application WhatsApp.
From Salon ● Oct. 30, 2021
They studied photo- graphs and technical drawings of the Vemork plant.
From "Bomb" by Steve Sheinkin
A quick scroll through TikTok reveals numerous accounts, many of them created in the past few weeks, sharing photos and videos of an elusive black-and-white feline wearing the famous, towering, crooked red-and-white striped hat.
From BBC ● Aug. 23, 2026
Facebook turned from a place to share photos and event invites to a place where Boomers give themselves AI psychosis.
From Salon ● Aug. 23, 2026
As he recalled, growing up he learned about antisemitism “in history books, black-and-white photos, and film reels.”
From Slate ● Aug. 20, 2026
Paparazzi snapped photos as a fluffy white Samoyed puppy trotted down the airstair, appearing at home in its new billionaire lifestyle.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 18, 2026
He takes photos of the drawings, then shows me how to upload and drop them into the program.
From "The Tenth Mistake of Hank Hooperman" by Gennifer Choldenko
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.
