WiFi

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   Alternative spelling of Wi-Fi.

   Most cafés now expect customers to ask for the WiFi password the moment they sit down.

   The signal kept dropping because the WiFi reached only the front half of the apartment.

   Note

   The closed-up spelling carries every meaning of the hyphenated form, and its grammar shifts with those meanings. For the technology, for wireless networking, or informally for the ability to get online, it is uncountable: the WiFi is down. When it means one particular network, it becomes countable and takes the plural WiFis, so a café and the shop next door offer two different WiFis. The same spelling also serves as the verb.

2. 2
   verb

   Alternative form of Wi-Fi.

   The city decided to WiFi all of its public parks and libraries.

   Contractors will WiFi the conference center in time for the spring trade show.

   Note

   The verb's forms are where this spelling gets awkward. The participle takes a hyphen (WiFi-ing), but the past tense is closed up (WiFied), and the third person is WiFis. Most uses are transitive: you WiFi a campus or a park. It also fits the way-construction, as in Derek Abraham's 2017 line about smartphones "4G-ing and WiFi-ing their way into the hamlets." It can also mean simply to connect to the internet over Wi-Fi.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2