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Wi-Fi

[ wahy-fahy ]

/ ˈwaɪˌfaɪ /

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Computers, Trademark.

a brand name certifying that a device or other product is compatible with a set of broadband wireless networking standards.

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Origin of Wi-Fi

First recorded in 1995–2000; wi(reless)-fi(delity), patterned after hi-fi

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

How to use Wi-Fi in a sentence

Finding good wifi in the Outer Hebrides is about as common as finding someone between the ages of 18 and 30.
Scotland’s ‘Yes’ Campaign and the Myth of Scottish Equality|Noah Caldwell|September 18, 2014|DAILY BEAST
These videoclips will be processed through the shared public-access wifi facility known as “the cloud.”
A ‘Truman Show’ For Today: The Return of Josh Harris|Anthony Haden-Guest|July 11, 2014|DAILY BEAST
With, say, Chinese and Indian youths in villages with wifi now paying micro-cents to listen, new markets are admittedly emerging.
Van Dyke Parks on How Songwriters Are Getting Screwed in the Digital Age|Van Dyke Parks|June 4, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Tao Lin charts the path of lunar hamsters in search of some decent wifi sometime in the year 2027.
Crazy Cartography: Artists and Writers Conjure a Slew of Imaginative Maps|Lauren Elkin|April 13, 2014|DAILY BEAST

Then, using the magic of in-flight bluetooth/wifi, the messaging can begin.
Wingman, an App for Hookups at 30,000 Feet, Wants To Be the Tinder of Airline Travel|Charlotte Lytton|February 10, 2014|DAILY BEAST
There were four open WiFi nodes visible from the board room and I told it to change between them at random intervals.
Little Brother|Cory Doctorow
It was going to take a couple hours for all the data to squeeze through her neighbor's WiFi network and wing its way to Sweden.
Little Brother|Cory Doctorow
He showed me how many open WiFi networks were visible from his high vantage point -- twenty, thirty of them.
Little Brother|Cory Doctorow
The overlapping rings of WiFi false-colored over the map were nearly total.
Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town|Cory Doctorow

British Dictionary definitions for Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi

/ (ˈwaɪˌfaɪ) /

noun

computing a system of accessing the internet from remote machines such as laptop computers that have wireless connections

Word Origin for Wi-Fi

C20: from wi (reless) fi (delity)

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