Webcam

How to spell webcam

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce webcam

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does webcam mean?

1. nounA small digital camera connected to a computer or network that captures video, typically for streaming or video calls.

Webcam in a sentence

• She clipped a new webcam to the top of her monitor before the interview.

• The meeting froze because his webcam kept dropping the connection.

Where does webcam come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a modern compound that came together in the mid 1990s as personal computers connected to the internet. The first part, 'web', is short for the World Wide Web, itself a use of the old Germanic word 'web' meaning something woven, applied to the interlinked network of pages that Tim Berners-Lee launched in 1991. The second part, 'cam', is a clipping of 'camera', which traces back to the Latin 'camera' meaning 'vaulted chamber' or 'room' and earlier the Greek 'kamara' for an arched roof; the photographic sense grew from 'camera obscura', literally a 'dark room' that projected an image. Joining the two gave a small video camera that streams pictures across the web, a term popularised by early devices such as the much-talked-about Trojan Room coffee pot camera at Cambridge. Because both halves are familiar everyday words, the spelling is mercifully transparent.

How the word is built

• web (from World Wide Web)
• cam (clipped from camera)