Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Hyperlink
/ˈhaɪpərlɪŋk/noun
A reference in a document that takes the reader straight to another place when activated.
The Greek roots
ὑπέρ
hypér
over, beyond
Literally: “beyond-link”
Follow a root:ὑπέρ13 words
The story of the word
Ted Nelson made the word in 1965 alongside hypertext, and he took ὑπέρ not from anything the Greeks did with it but from mathematics, where hyperspace had long meant something with extra dimensions. The link was to be the document's extra dimension, its escape from the single line the page imposes. Tim Berners-Lee built the working version twenty-five years later and kept Nelson's vocabulary intact.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → modern coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1965
Same family
hypertexthyperbolehypertensionhyphen
In a sentence
Every hyperlink in the archived page now leads nowhere.
She buried the correction in a hyperlink at the bottom.