online
Formsonlines, onlining, onlined
- 1Reachable or obtainable on the Internet, or supplied through it.
The college offers several online courses for people who work during the day.
He filed his tax return through an online portal in minutes.
UsageUsually before a noun: an online course, online shopping, the online world.
Similardigital
Oppositeoffline
Note
It describes how a thing is delivered, not the state of a machine, so it pairs naturally with services, shops and publications. When the subject is a person, as in "I'll be online tonight," the meaning has moved to simply being connected.
- 2While connected to the Internet, or while in a running, active state.
Students submit their assignments online before midnight.
The auction was held online so bidders worldwide could take part.
UsageComes after the verb: pay online, meet online, held online.
Similarelectronically
Oppositeoffline
Note
Kip's line in Napoleon Dynamite (2004), "we chat online for, like, two hours every day," shows its everyday home.
- 3Connected to the Internet or another computer network and able to communicate over it.
Half the office was still online after the power flickered.
I can't be online during the flight, so send the file now.
UsageWith a person or device, usually after be, go or stay: go online, stay online.
- 4Of a machine, factory, power station, or other system: running and working, or connected to the grid or network it serves.
The second assembly line was finally online after weeks of maintenance.
Heating won't be online in the new wing until the boiler passes inspection.
UsageThings come online when they start; to make that happen, you bring something online.
Note
Facilities are often said to come online. The pattern marks the moment a plant, a production line or a service starts working: when the new turbine comes online, the town will need far less imported power. Of a generator or power station, it also means connected to the grid.
Once this factory comes online, it will double car production in our country!
The new reactor is expected to come online next spring.
Less common meanings
- 5Deeply immersed in Internet culture, usually to an excessive degree.
The writer is so extremely online that her references baffle anyone over forty.
Being terminally online, he treats every news story as fresh meme material.
UsageUsually in the set phrases extremely online and terminally online.
Note
Slang that turns a technical word into a judgment of character. A.O. Scott, writing in 2019, could even speak of "the extremely online" as a group with idioms of its own. Used of a person, it means a sensibility shaped by Internet conversation.
- 6Available on a computer system, even when it is not connected to a network.
The system keeps the last ninety days of logs online for quick searching and moves anything older to cheaper archive storage.
To save space, the hospital keeps only two years of scans online and sends older ones to tape, which can take a day to restore.
- 7To bring a system into an active, running state, often by connecting it to a network.
After the outage, it took the night shift several hours to online the backup systems and get customers connected again.
We plan to online the upgraded database cluster late tonight.
Oppositedeactivate, disable
Note
Systems jargon from computing: administrators online a disk where others would bring it online. It inflects as an ordinary verb, with onlines, onlining and onlined. John Clarke's Oracle Exadata Recipes (2013) uses it freely: "the commands to online your disks." Outside technical writing, bring online is the safer, more widely understood choice.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Computing documentation uses online transitively as a verb with disk as its object. docs.oracle.com
- The verb has the inflected forms onlines, onlining and onlined. en.wiktionary.org
- John Clarke wrote Oracle Exadata Recipes, first published in 2013. link.springer.com
- The quoted words occur in Clarke's book; Wiktionary attributes them to page 219. en.wiktionary.org
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
Formed from "on" plus "line"; first recorded for connected systems in 1950.