pixel

Etymology

It is formed from English pix (“pictures”) + element, keeping only the first syllable of the second word.^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} The Oxford Dictionary of English describes it as an abbreviation of the phrase “picture element”,^[8] and Wiktionary notes that it is often taken as a blend of picture and element.^[1] The first part is an alteration of “pics”, the plural of pic, short for “picture”.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Each of the tiny areas that make up an image: the OED's first record is from 1965, in a paper by F. C. Billingsley in the proceedings of the Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers,^[2][1] where each sample of an image was defined as "a picture element or pixel".^[1] Etymonline, Barnhart and Merriam-Webster date it to 1969.^[3][4][5]

Semantic evolution

Barnhart and Etymonline describe the word as coined for the elements of a television image;^[9][3] the OED's definition covers the image on a television or computer screen and the individual elements of an image sensor,^[2] and Merriam-Webster also has a sense for the detecting elements of a charge-coupled device.^[5] Wiktionary records a verb pixel, to make computer graphics by editing single pixels, quoted from 2006.^[1]

Timeline

• 1965 – a picture element, in Billingsley's paper.^[2][1]
• 1969 – the elements of a television image (Etymonline, Barnhart, Merriam-Webster).^[3][4][5]
• 2006 – verb, to draw graphics pixel by pixel.^[1]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. Any of the many tiny elements of uniform colour and brightness that together make up an image on a television or computer screen: The old monitor showed every pixel of the icon.
2. Any of the light-detecting elements of a charge-coupled device or other image sensor.

Verb

1. To make computer graphics by editing single pixels.

Related words

• pix
• pic
• picture
• element
• texel

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
5. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
7. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology