pixel

[ pik-suhl, -sel ]

See synonyms for pixel on Thesaurus.com

nounComputers, Television.

the smallest element of an image that can be individually processed in a video display system.

Origin of pixel

1965–70; pix² (in the sense “pictures”) + el(ement)

Words Nearby pixel

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use pixel in a sentence

They have a lot of pixels on our page, and a lot of pixels on a lot of other publishers’ pages.
Publishers worry Taboola’s SPAC funding could make them more dependent on its ad revenue | Sara Guaglione | February 8, 2021 | Digiday
The speed of pixels moving across your field of vision is different to the speed of the player.
Virtual reality has real problems. Here’s how game developers seek to delete them. | Derek Swinhart | January 21, 2021 | Washington Post
In good light, it uses all of the pixels on the sensor individually.
Watch Samsung announce its new Galaxy S21 smartphones and Galaxy Buds Pro | Stan Horaczek | January 14, 2021 | Popular-Science
If you have first-party data by way of pixel or email lists, that’s where I would start.
SMX Overtime: Eternal testing, the key to Facebook Ads success | Amy Bishop | December 21, 2020 | Search Engine Land
To take precise brightness measurements of a star, we would need to be able to keep its center of brightness fixed to the same tiny fraction of a pixel, far finer than the width of a human hair.
My satellite would fit in a small suitcase. | Katie McLean | December 18, 2020 | MIT Technology Review

I think I would be a drifting pixel in the online dating world right now.
Patton Oswalt Sounds Off On Stand-Up’s Critics and Why Comedians Should Win Oscars | Marlow Stern | December 27, 2013 | THE DAILY BEAST
Inevitably, this time next year we will see 2,880 x 1,800 pixel screens all over the place.
5 Reasons I Hate My New MacBook Pro: A Geek’s Critique | Jason Stewart | June 15, 2012 | THE DAILY BEAST
She lives in the same house as pixel, our Italian Greyhound, who is something of a celebrity in Oaxaca.
In Praise of the Mexican Hairless Dog | Noah Kristula-Green | February 14, 2012 | THE DAILY BEAST
Technical Note: The illustrations were scanned at 400ppi and scaled to 25% by pixel count.
Printers' Marks | William Roberts
For this e-text, Plates were rescaled to 25% by pixel count, while most Figures were rescaled to 33%.
First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution | Various

British Dictionary definitions for pixel

pixel

/ (ˈpɪksəl) /

noun

any of a number of very small picture elements that make up a picture, as on a visual display unit

Origin of pixel

C20: from pix pictures + el (ement)

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

Scientific definitions for pixel

pixel

[ pĭk′səl ]

The most basic unit of an image displayed on a computer or television screen or on a printer. Pixels are generally arranged in rows and columns; a given combination among the pixels of various brightness and color values forms an image.♦ A subpixel is one of three components of a pixel used in the representation of a color image. Each subpixel represents the contribution of a single color-red, green, or blue-to the overall color and brightness of the pixel.

a closer look

The images on a computer screen are composed of tiny dots called pixels (short for picture element). The computer controls each pixel individually. Most monitors have hundreds of thousands, or often millions, of pixels that are lit or dimmed to create an image. Each pixel of a color screen is made out of one red, one blue, and one green subpixel, generally arranged in a triangle, adjusted individually to create the combined effect of a single color but treated as a unit pixel for determining resolution. Pixels vary in size according to the size and resolution of the monitor. Smaller pixels provide higher resolution, and therefore sharper images, but require more memory to store the color and intensity data of each pixel and more processing time to refresh the screen. Resolution is frequently referred to in terms of dpi, or dots per inch.

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