Wi-Fi

PluralWi-Fis (some meanings)

FormsWi-Fis, Wi-Fi-ing, Wi-Fied

1. 1
   noununcountable

   Wireless networking that uses one of the IEEE 802.11 standards for short-range data transmission.

   Guests can ask at the front desk for the Wi-Fi password.

   The Wi-Fi kept dropping during the video call, so we switched to our phones.

   Similarwireless

   Note

   A place simply has it, the way it has heating: a coffee shop has Wi-Fi, with no article. Once you are using it, it becomes the Wi-Fi, the one you connect to, ask the password for, or share with a guest, and a possessive works too, as in her Wi-Fi. Counting separate networks belongs to the countable use.

2. 2
   nouncolloquialuncountable

   The built-in ability of a device or appliance to link up with a Wi-Fi network.

   They paid extra for the washing machine with Wi-Fi and never once connected it.

   Does this camera have Wi-Fi, or do I need a cable to move the photos?

   Note

   When a device has Wi-Fi, it can join a network rather than provide one: a refrigerator with Wi-Fi joins the household network, while a coffee shop's Wi-Fi is the network itself. It is casual shorthand; more formal writing tends to call such a device Wi-Fi enabled.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   An individual wireless network that runs on Wi-Fi.

   The airport offers two Wi-Fis, a free one and a faster paid one.

   Choose the Wi-Fi named after the cafe, not the one from the shop next door.

   Similarnetwork, hotspot

4. 4
   noununcountable

   Any of several IEEE 802.11 standards for sending data wirelessly over short distances.

   The new chip supports the latest version of Wi-Fi as well as Bluetooth.

   Wi-Fi and Bluetooth both use radio, but they were designed for different jobs.

   Note

   The name of the standards began as a trade name, modeled on hi-fi, for the industry group then called the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance, later the Wi-Fi Alliance. It is often explained as short for "wireless fidelity", on the pattern of hi-fi and high fidelity, but the echo came first. Engineers say 802.11 when they mean the specifications; Wi-Fi is the name everyone else uses.

5. 5
   verbintransitive

   To connect to the internet through Wi-Fi.

   Half the passengers in the departure lounge were Wi-Fi-ing on laptops and tablets.

   Travelers who Wi-Fi in hotel lobbies should be careful about typing passwords in public.

   Note

   The verb turns up most naturally in its -ing form and in public places: someone Wi-Fi-ing in a hotel lobby or a crowded airport waiting area. It takes into for where the connection leads, as when Vanity Fair, in 2004, pictured Addison and Steele holding court at Starbucks and Wi-Fi-ing into a joint blog.

6. 6
   verbtransitive

   To equip something, such as a building or a device, with Wi-Fi.

   The city wants to Wi-Fi its parks and bus stops by next spring.

   Carmakers have been Wi-Fi-ing their new models so drivers can stream music.

   Note

   The verb keeps the noun's capitals and hyphen and adds its endings after them: Wi-Fis, Wi-Fi-ing, Wi-Fied. It takes the thing being equipped as its object and often turns up in the passive, as when a vehicle in Dean Koontz's The Silent Corner (2017) is Wi-Fied to the grid. Going online by Wi-Fi is the other verb, and it takes no object.

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