carriage return
Americannoun
-
(on a typewriter) the key or mechanism that causes the next character typed to appear at the left margin and on a new line.
-
Computers. the symbol, command, or key return that causes the printer to be positioned or the cursor to be displayed at the left margin.
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.
The typewriter’s punchy carriage return — and its associated pinging sound — has a way of punctuating the end of barreling motifs in the flute writing.
From New York Times • Feb. 17, 2021
It may sound nostalgic to cite those endangered features of moviegoing as two I’d miss—the cinematic equivalent of eulogizing the smell of warm newsprint or the crisp “ding” of the carriage return on a typewriter.
From Slate • Jan. 1, 2019
Newly landed at a quiet provincial newspaper, he strikes a match by holding it against the cylinder of a typewriter and pressing the carriage return.
From The New Yorker • Dec. 9, 2016
Christopher Middleton, we are told, possesses “the ability to speak in perfectly constructed paragraphs, with an audible carriage return in the voice.”
From Washington Post • Jan. 7, 2015
Oma grows accustomed to the incessant tapping, the constant ring of the carriage return.
From "The Boy Who Dared" by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
![]()
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.