autocomplete

nounB2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speech — auto sits at #2,891Too rare in one of the two pools to compare — fewer than 20 uses in speech or in writing

Autocomplete is the feature that finishes your typing for you. Turn off autocomplete, autocomplete suggested it, an autocomplete error.

It saves time and produces a whole genre of mistake, since the wrong suggestion is accepted without being read. In code editors it is nearly indispensable and remembers what a name was called.

Definitions of autocomplete

1nounautocompleteThe feature that finishes your typing for you.B2
“Autocomplete put the wrong surname on the whole letter.”

autocomplete is a feature.

Where it comes from

From auto- + complete.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Computing & Code

Practise this word

autocomplete in the wild

Many autocomplete algorithms learn new words after the user has written them a few times, and can suggest alternatives based on the learned habits of the individual user.
Autocomplete
Many address bars offer features like autocomplete, and a list of suggestions that appear while the address is being typed in.
Address bar
Bandicam features an autocomplete recording mode which can limit the video capture process to a specified size or time value.
Bandicam
In May 2013, the German Federal Court of Justice stated that Google's predictions within the autocomplete function of its web search engine can violate the right of personality.
Judgement of the German Federal Court of Justice on Google's autocomplete function
The interviews are not conducted by interviewers; instead, guests read a list of Google Search terms shown as autocomplete results for the guests' names.
Autocomplete Interview

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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