ONLINE definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary

If a person is active over a messaging tool and is able to accept the messages it is termed as online message and if the person is not available and the message is left to view when the person is back, it is termed as offline message. In the offline state, or “offline mode”, users can perform offline browsing, where pages can be browsed using local copies of those pages that have previously been downloaded while in the online state. The online or offline state of the MUA does not necessarily reflect the connection status between the computer on which it is running and the Internet i.e. the computer itself may be online—connected to the Internet via a cable modem or other means—while Outlook is kept offline by the user, so that it makes no attempt to send or to receive messages. When online it will attempt to connect to mail servers (to check for new mail at regular intervals, for example), and when offline it will not attempt to make any such connection. Since at least 1950, in computing, the terms on-line and off-line have been used to refer to whether machines, including computers and peripheral devices, are connected or not. The term “offline” is sometimes used interchangeably with the acronym “IRL”, meaning “in real life”, as well as about office meetings in person wherein a formal, high-concentration meeting may have matters taken “offline” to a more relaxed moment away from the “online” high-stress meeting.

And we don’t just host online games, we play them too. Since online basically means connected, you can remember that online is the better version. Both on-line and online are correct versions of this term. In both usages, it refers to the state of being connected to a network. Likewise, offline storage is computer data storage that has no connection to the other systems until a connection is deliberately made. More recently, the Internet Archive announced an offline server project intended to provide access to material on inexpensive servers that can be updated online sweepstakes using USB sticks and SD cards.

Kids Definition

When pages are added to the Favourites list, they can be marked to be “available for offline browsing”. During the 19th century, the term on line was commonly used in both the railroad and telegraph industries. A similar meaning is also given by the prefixes cyber and e, as in words cyberspace, cybercrime, email, and e-commerce. “Online” has come to describe activities and concepts that take place on the Internet, such as online identity, online predator and online shop.

A device that is offline uses no external clock reference and relies upon its own internal clock. A tape recorder, digital audio editor, or other device that is online is one whose clock is under the control of the clock of a synchronization master device. Similarly, a computer may be configured to employ a dial-up connection on demand (as when an application such as Outlook attempts to make a connection to a server), but the user may not wish for Outlook to trigger that call whenever it is configured to check for mail. One example of a common use of these concepts with email is a mail user agent (MUA) that can be instructed to be in either online or offline states.

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• In this post, I will compare on-line vs online.
• If someone asks if you’re online, they’re wondering whether you have Internet access.
• The definition of Online on this page is an original definition written by the authors of TechTerms.com.

In this case, your device may be online in the context of the local network, but offline in terms of Internet access. The words on and line are directly connected in this compound, just like devices and the network when they are online. When many devices are connected to a sync master it is often convenient, if one wants to hear just the output of one single device, to take it offline because, if the device is played back online, all synchronized devices have to locate the playback point and wait for each other device to be in synchronization. A device can appear online within a local network, but still not have internet access.

Offline messages

On-line is the older variation of these two words that is quickly falling out of common use. Here are a few examples of the word’s use as an adjective, Plus, I will show you a helpful memory tool that will allow you to choose on-line or online in your own writing. I will use each of these words in at least one example sentence, so you can see them in context. In this post, I will compare on-line vs online. Like so many words, though, there is more than one way to spell this one.