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webcam

US/ˈwɛbˌkæm/
nounB1+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,778 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: webcams

A webcam is the small camera above your screen used for video calls. Turn on the webcam, a webcam light, cover the webcam.

The light beside it is wired to the camera in most laptops so that it cannot record without showing, which is a deliberate safeguard. Covering one with tape is common advice and does no harm. The first was aimed at a coffee pot in a Cambridge laboratory.

Masahiko OHKUBO from Kobe, Japan · CC BY 2.0

Definitions of webcam

  1. 1nounwebcamThe small camera above your screen used for video calls.B1+

    “My webcam wasn't working, so the others could hear me but not see me.”

webcam is a camera.

Where it comes from

Web plus cam, a shortening of camera, from the earliest days of the World Wide Web.

From Web + cam, shortened from camera.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Technology & Internet

Practise this word

webcam in the wild

  • A webcam is a video camera which is designed to record or stream to a computer or computer network.

    Webcam

  • Early webcam usage on the Internet was primarily limited to stationary shots streamed to web sites.

    Webcam

  • The name was originally used for the external iSight webcam announced in 2003.

    ISight

  • Softcams are computer software (that technically do not replace webcams) that allows one to stream or broadcast image, video, and/or audio files through a virtual webcam device.

    Softcam

  • In effect, softcam software allows the user to project media files as though it were live over a webcam.

    Softcam

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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.