DictionaryAI

register

REJ-i-stur/ˈɹɛd͡ʒ.ɪ.stɚ/UKREJ-i-stuh/ˈɹɛd͡ʒ.ɪ.stə/

Verbregisters, registering, registered

Noun pluralregisters

25 meanings of register

Practice

  1. 1
    enrollverbtransitive or intransitive
    To put a person's name, or a thing such as a car or a birth, on an official list or record, or to have one's own name put there; to sign up.

    The league registers new players every spring before the season opens.

    Volunteer groups register thousands of first-time voters every election year.

    UsageRegister for a course, to vote, or with an office. For yourself it often takes no object: you register, then you vote.

    Note

    For yourself the verb often takes no object: you register, then you vote. The civic sense is best known from the call to register and vote, as in Barack Obama's 2008 appeal to first-time voters in a letter to Vibe magazine. The same verb puts a car or a birth on an official record.

  2. 2
    nouncountable
    An official list or record of names, events, or transactions, or the book in which it is kept.

    The old mill was added to the national register of historic places.

    Every share transfer appears in the company's register of shareholders.

    UsageA register of names or places, with entries on or in it. In schools, take the register means call each name to check who is present.

    Similarrecord

  3. 3
    put on recordverbtransitive
    To make a formal record of something, especially in writing.

    The clerk registered the complaint in the official log.

    By law, the captain must register the time and position of every accident in the ship's log.

    Similarrecord, log, document, note

    Note

    Recording reaches well beyond pen and paper. Sports reporting uses the verb for what enters the statistics, as when a side fails to register a single shot on target. In Jack London's The Mutiny of the Elsinore (1914), the narrator registers a note that exists only in his head. That inward use shades toward noticing something.

    Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

    • Jack London wrote The Mutiny of the Elsinore, first published in 1914. en.wikipedia.org
    • The narrator uses 'registered a note' for a mental observation, as the dinner scene indicates. gutenberg.org
  4. 4
    checkoutnounUSabbreviationellipsis
    Short for cash register: a machine that records sales and holds the money, or the counter in a store where customers pay.

    He rang up the groceries at the register while chatting with the customer.

    The register came up twenty dollars short at closing.

    UsageYou pay at the register, where a cashier rings you up.

    Note

    A shortening, chiefly American, that keeps the second word of cash register and drops the first. It carries both meanings of the full term. It can be the machine with its cash drawer, which comes up short at closing. It can also be the place where you pay, as when someone rings you up at the register.

    Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 1 fact

    • 'Register' is a chiefly American shortening of 'cash register', omitting 'cash'. en.wiktionary.org
  5. 5
    show a readingverbtransitive
    Of a measuring instrument, to display a given reading; of an event, to reach a given level when measured on a scale.

    Thermometers in the greenhouse often register over 100 degrees by midday in July.

    The quake registered 6.4 on the Richter scale, the strongest in the region for decades.

    UsageThe figure usually follows with no preposition, and on names the scale: registered 6.4 on the Richter scale.

    Similarread, show, measure, indicate

    Note

    Two kinds of subject take this verb: the instrument (a thermometer registers 100 degrees) and the thing measured (a quake registers 6.4). Its kin is the recording device, the meter that does the registering. With news or a fact as the subject, register can instead mean to be noticed or understood, as in news that barely registered.

  6. 6
    sink inverbintransitive
    To be noticed or understood; to sink in or make an impression on someone.

    The candidate's message failed to register with younger voters.

    His quiet apology registered more deeply than any grand gesture could have.

    UsageThe person who notices comes after with: the message didn't register with younger voters.

    Note

    Here the thing noticed is the subject, and the verb often comes negated. In Salman Rushdie's Fury (2001), the plain fact that a son is ill "hasn't even registered." Make the person the subject and you have the transitive "take in": he never registered the look.

  7. 7
    computer memorynouncountable
    A tiny, extremely fast memory location that the central processing unit can reach directly, used mostly to hold the inputs, outputs, and interim results of calculations.

    The compiler keeps the loop counter in a register to avoid slow memory access.

    Modern processors include dozens of general-purpose registers.

    Note

    Computing's smallest and fastest storage, sitting inside the processor itself. Programmers speak of loading a value into a register, storing an operand in one, or inspecting its contents while debugging. Individual registers carry names, such as the TEMP register or the PC. Because ordinary memory is slower, compilers try to keep busy values in registers.

    Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 8 facts

Practice

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Origin

The source is Latin regerō ("to record, to carry back"), made of re- and gerō ("to carry, bear"). It led to Late Latin regesta ("list, items recorded") and then to Medieval Latin registrum, which English adopted. A few senses were shaped by Latin regō ("to rule"), a word people linked to it though the two are unrelated.