photo
noun
photo
1 American
[foh-toh]
/ ˈfoʊ toʊ /
photo-
2
American
photo
1
British
/ ˈfəʊtəʊ /
noun
photo-
2
British
combining form
-
of, relating to, or produced by light
photosynthesis
-
indicating a photographic process
photolithography
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:
Mr. Logan warns the careless away from parking on gravesites and prevents bridal photo shoots from disturbing those who have come to mourn the more recently deceased.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 28, 2026
Heikes told the paper he was recruited by a Midwesterner who he did not think resembled a photo of Kurtz.
From Barron's ● Oct. 28, 2026
The title translates to “liberty,” while the cover art re-creates a well-known photo of the message Márquez wrote in 1937, but with the album’s title instead.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 26, 2026
Finally, Johnson reached the redheaded woman whose photo led Stafford to dream of a less-lonely life.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 24, 2026
Every single photo felt like a deep cut—and a relief at the same time.
From "Boy 2.0" by Tracey Baptiste
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
In our testing, it handled intense photo- and video-editing workloads better than almost any Intel-powered thin-and-light laptop we’ve tried this year.
From The Verge ● Jul. 22, 2022
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
They studied photo- graphs and technical drawings of the Vemork plant.
From "Bomb" by Steve Sheinkin
She's also given up on cycling to the local parks where she previously enjoyed taking close-up photos of the bugs, lizards and toads.
From BBC ● Oct. 28, 2026
More than a dozen photos of actors have already been posted, with captions listing the amount they need to make to hit their earnings minimum and describing their past credits.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 28, 2026
The photos were taken consensually, when Gallant was a private citizen, but what’s protecting him more than anything is that he looks good.
From Slate ● Oct. 27, 2026
On the wall of his modest office are photos of dozens of Russian suspects as well as the Ukrainian victims.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 26, 2026
She shows me a couple more of her photos, where she’s wearing different but similar vests.
From "Popcorn" by Rob Harrell
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