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hyperlink

UK/ˈhaɪpə(ɹ)ˌlɪŋk/US/ˈhaɪpə(ɹ)ˌlɪŋk/
nounB2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speech — link sits at #2,189Too rare in one of the two pools to compare — fewer than 20 uses in speech or in writing

Other forms: hyperlinks

A hyperlink is clickable text that jumps you to another page. Follow the hyperlink.

It is what makes the web a web rather than a library of separate documents. A hyperlink that no longer works is called link rot, and the web is full of it.

Belbury, cursor by Dub · CC BY 4.0

Definitions of hyperlink

  1. 1nounhyperlinkClickable text that jumps you to another page.B2

    “Every hyperlink in the old article led to a page that had gone.”

hyperlink is a link.

Also accepted in games: link

Where it comes from

Hyper plus link, from hypertext, coined by Ted Nelson in the 1960s.

  1. Proto-Germanic

    *hlankiz — ring; bond; fettle; fetter

  2. Old Norse

    *hlenkr

  3. Old English

    hlenċe

  4. Middle English

    linke

  5. English

    link

  6. English, today

    hyperlink

Built from

  • hlenċa · Old English — ring; chainlink
  • hlekkr · Old Norse — ring; chain
  • *klenk- · Proto-Indo-European — to bend; twist; wind

From hyper + link, or a hypertext and link. link comes from Middle English linke, lenke, from a merger of Old English hlenċe, hlenċa (“ring; chainlink”) and Old Norse hlenkr, hlekkr (“ring; chain”); both from Proto-Germanic hlankiz (“ring; bond; fettle; fetter”), from Proto-Germanic hlankaz (“bendsome, flexible”), from Proto-Indo-European kleng-, klenk- (“to bend; twist; wind”). Used in English since the 14th century. Related to lank. 2 Cognate with Low German Lenk (“link”), Danish lænke (“chain; link”), ovd lekk (“link”), Icelandic hlekkur (“link”), Norwegian Bokmål lenke (“chain; link”), Norwegian Nynorsk lenke, lenkje (“chain; link”), Swedish länk (“chain; link”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Technology & Internet

Practise this word

hyperlink in the wild

  • In computing, a hyperlink, or simply a link, is a digital reference providing direct access to data by a user's clicking or tapping.

    Hyperlink

  • A hyperlink points to a whole document or to a specific element within a document.

    Hyperlink

  • Anthology films are often mistaken for hyperlink cinema.

    Anthology film

  • From the point of view of a given web resource (referent), a backlink is a hyperlink on another web resource (the referrer) that points to the referent.

    Backlink

  • The anchor text, link label, or link text is the visible, clickable text in an HTML hyperlink.

    Anchor text

1 / 3

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.

Related words

the hlenċe family

link

hyperlink — used too rare to measure · point at the bar for the others