Plugin

How to spell plugin

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce plugin

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does plugin mean?

1. nounA small piece of software added to a larger program or website to extend its features.

Plugin in a sentence

• The designer installed a plugin to compress every image on the site.

• A faulty plugin slowed the whole browser to a crawl.

Where does plugin come from?

Language of origin: Dutch

This is a modern compound born in the computing era, formed straightforwardly from the everyday words 'plug' and 'in'. The verb 'plug' goes back to a Dutch or Low German word, 'plugge', meaning a peg or stopper used to block a hole, and English picked it up in the 1600s for the wooden bung that sealed a barrel. When electricity arrived, a 'plug' became the fitting you push into a socket, and the phrase 'to plug in' described making that connection. Software designers borrowed the metaphor in the late twentieth century: a 'plug-in' was an optional component you slot into a larger program to add a feature, just as you push a plug into a wall. The closed-up spelling 'plugin' is the newer, web-era form, and the spelling trap is simply remembering it as one solid word with a single internal 'g'.

How the word is built

• plug (insert, connect)
• -in (adverbial particle indicating attachment)