display definition

English display definition

Etymology

From Middle English displayen, from Anglo-Norman despleier and Old French despleier, desploiier, from Medieval Latin displicare (“to unfold, display”), from Latin dis- (“apart”) + plicāre (“to fold”). Doublet of deploy.

Pronunciation

• enPR: dĭsplāʹ, IPA^(key): /dɪsˈpleɪ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪ
• Hyphenation: dis‧play

Noun

display (countable and uncountable, plural displays)

1. A show or spectacle.

   The trapeze artist put on an amazing acrobatic display.

2. A piece of work to be presented visually.

   Pupils are expected to produce a wall display about a country of their choice.

3. A device, furniture or marketing-oriented bulk packaging for visual presentation for sales promotion.

   Synonym: cardboard display

4. (computing) An electronic screen that shows graphics or text.
5. (computing) The presentation of information for visual or tactile reception.

Descendants

• → Russian: диспле́й (displéj)
  • → Kazakh: дисплей (displei)

Translations

See also

Verb

display (third-person singular simple present displays, present participle displaying, simple past and past participle displayed)

1. (transitive) To show conspicuously; to exhibit; to demonstrate; to manifest.

   Troponyms: brandish, flaunt, show off

   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, OCLC 4293071:

     All this was extraordinarily distasteful to Churchill. It was ugly, gross. Never before had he felt such repulsion when the vicar displayed his characteristic bluntness or coarseness of speech. In the present connexion […] such talk had been distressingly out of place.

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 1, in The China Governess‎^[1]:

     The huge square box, parquet-floored and high-ceilinged, had been arranged to display a suite of bedroom furniture designed and made in the halcyon days of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, […].

2. (intransitive) To make a display; to act as one making a show or demonstration.
   • c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act II, scene iv], page 293:

     Being the very fellow which of late / Diſplaid ſo ſawcily againſt your Highneſſe […]

3. (military) To extend the front of (a column), bringing it into line, deploy.
   • 1610, William Camden, Philémon Holland, transl., Britain, or A Chorographicall Description of the Most Flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland, […], London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press for] Georgii Bishop & Ioannis Norton, OCLC 1166778000:

     The Englishmen […] display their ranks and […] press hard upon their enemies.

4. (printing, dated) To make conspicuous by using large or prominent type.
5. (obsolete) To discover; to descry.
   • [1611?], Homer, “(please specify |book=I to XXIV)”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., The Iliads of Homer Prince of Poets. […], London: […] Nathaniell Butter, OCLC 614803194; The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets, […], volume (please specify the book number), new edition, London: Charles Knight and Co., […], 1843, OCLC 987451361:

     And from his seat took pleasure to display / The city so adorned with towers.

6. (obsolete) To spread out, to unfurl.

   Synonym: splay

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Qveene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for VVilliam Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938, book II, canto v:

     The wearie Traueiler, wandring that way, / Therein did often quench his thristy heat, / And then by it his wearie limbes display, / Whiles creeping slomber made him to forget / His former paine [...].

Translations

Further reading

• display in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• display in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• display at OneLook Dictionary Search.

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Dutch display definition

Etymology

Borrowed from English display.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dɪsˈpleː/, /ˈdɪs.pleː/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: dis‧play
• Rhymes: -eː

Noun

display m or n (plural displays, diminutive displaytje n)

1. display (screen)

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Portuguese display definition

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English display.

Pronunciation

Noun

display m (plural displays)

1. display (electronic screen)

   Synonyms: ecrã, tela

Quotations

For quotations using this term, see Citations:display.

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Romanian display definition

Etymology

From English display.

Noun

display n (plural display-uri)

1. display

Declension

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Spanish display definition

Etymology

From English display.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /disˈplei/, [d̪isˈplei̯]

Noun

display m (plural displays)

1. display