Pixel

How to spell pixel

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce pixel

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does pixel mean?

1. nounThe smallest single point of light or colour that makes up a digital image on a screen or sensor.

Pixel in a sentence

• A single dead pixel on the new monitor was enough to justify a return.

• Zooming too far into the photo turned every face into a blur of one giant pixel.

Where does pixel come from?

Language of origin: Other

Pixel is a thoroughly modern coinage, a blend of "picture element," the two ideas squeezed together into a single tidy word. The first part comes from "pix," a jaunty bit of mid twentieth century slang for pictures (originally pictures in the cinema and press sense), and the second part is the "el" of "element," meaning one of the smallest individual pieces that make up a whole. The term appeared in American technical writing in the 1960s, often credited to engineers working on the digital processing of images from spacecraft, where each tiny addressable dot on a screen or sensor needed a name. It quickly spread from laboratories into everyday speech as digital cameras, computer monitors, and phones put millions of these dots in front of ordinary people. The spelling trap is simply the ending: because it grew out of "element" rather than a Latin diminutive, it finishes in -el and not -le, so it is pixel, never "pixle."

How the word is built

• pix (from "pix," a clipped form of "pictures")
• el (from "element")