modem

Pluralmodems

Formsmodems, modeming, modemed

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A device that converts digital computer signals into analog signals for transmission over a phone line, and converts the incoming analog signals back into digital form.

   She plugged the modem into the phone jack and waited for the dial tone.

   Early modems transmitted data at just 300 bits per second.

   Note

   The name is the machine's job description, clipped: modulator-demodulator, cut down to mo- and -dem. Modulating shapes a signal so data can ride over the phone line, and demodulating reads the data back out. Every modem does both, which is why one box serves for sending and receiving. David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest (1996) names it in one breath with PC and fiber-optic line.

2. 2
   verbtransitive

   To transmit data to another computer by means of a modem.

   In the early nineties, researchers would modem datasets between universities overnight.

   She modemed the manuscript to her publisher just before midnight.

   Similartransmit, send

   Note

   Computing turned the name of the device into a verb, and its spelling never settled. Modemed and modeming sit beside the doubled modemmed and modemming, and both are correct. It paired naturally with fax, as in books "faxed or modemed to you". It also took a particle for connecting from afar: David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest (1996) has a character who must "modem in" to the agency.

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