Unit 6 Vocabulary: The Internet

Proper noun (thing)
US
UK
ARPANET (Advanced Projects Research Agency Network)
US
UK
developed by the US military for defense purposes, this was the first global network with packet switching
US
UK
"The current public Internet owes a big debt to ARPANET, which was the original global network."
Noun (thing)
US
UK
Backbone
US
UK
a central high speed network that connects smaller, independent networks
US
UK
"Homeland Security is worried that an attack on the Internet backbone could cripple the country for weeks or months."
Proper noun (thing)
US
UK
BBS (Bulletin Board System)
US
UK
a predecessor to modern websites, these were early online communities that users could dial into using a modem
US
UK
"The network administrator ran his own BBS as a boy back in the 1980s."
Noun (thing)
US
UK
Cookie
US
UK
a text file created by websites which contains personal information about an end user
US
UK
"The web's use of cookies is quite controversial because most users have no idea that their information is being collected and stored on their computer."
Noun (thing)
US
UK
Domain name
US
UK
the unique name which identifies a website
US
UK
"The domain name of Microsoft Corporation is microsoft.com."
Verb (infinitive)
US
UK
Download
US
UK
to transfer a file or files from a remote computer to the user's computer
US
UK
"The professor asked us to download the example database from the school's server."
Noun (thing)
US
UK
e-commerce (electronic commerce)
US
UK
the term for buying and selling goods and services over the World Wide Web
US
UK
"Although e-commerce started out small, it has grown into a multi-billion dollar industry."
Noun (thing)
US
UK
Emoticon
US
UK
a symbol that uses the characters on a computer keyboard to convey emotion in an email or instant message, such as the smiley face :)
US
UK
"One of the most popular emoticons is perhaps the wink and smile ;) which is used to convey irony or satire."
Noun (thing)
US
UK
Hyperlink
US
UK
a document cross-reference technique enabling the retrieval of a related document or resource simply by clicking on an underlined word or image
US
UK
"The man made a hyperlink from his personal homepage to his friend's business."
Noun (thing)
US
UK
Hypertext
US
UK
any electronic cross-referencing document first prophesized by Vannevar Bush in 1945
US
UK
"The woman asked her professor if the textbook was available as hypertext."
Proper noun (thing)
US
UK
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)
US
UK
the coding or tagging syntax used to write documents for web browsers
US
UK
"A good web developer will know most HTML tags without looking in a book."
Noun (thing)
US
UK
URL (Uniform Resource Locator)
US
UK
the address which specifies the location of a file on the Internet
US
UK
"One uses a URL to go directly to a particular website."
Verb (infinitive)
US
UK
Upload
US
UK
to transfer a file from a local computer to a remote computer
US
UK
"The boy decided to upload a picture of his new girlfriend to his Facebook page."
Proper noun (thing)
US
UK
WWW (World Wide Web)
US
UK
a global hypertext system operating on the Internet that enables electronic communication of text and multimedia
US
UK
"The World Wide Web is the best thing to happen to computing since birth of the PC."
Proper noun (thing)
US
UK
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)
US
UK
an organization which develops specifications and guidelines for the World Wide Web
US
UK
"The W3C recommends that web developers no longer use font tags in their HTML documents."
Go to unit menu