DictionaryAI

wireless

WYR-luhs/ˈwaɪ(jə)ɹ.ləs/UKWY-uh-luhs/ˈwaɪə.ləs/

6 meanings of wireless

Practice

  1. 1
    adjective
    Working without needing to be connected to anything else by a wire or cable.

    The office switched to wireless keyboards to cut down on cable clutter.

    The speaker is fully wireless, so you can carry it from room to room.

    Similarcordless

    Oppositewired, corded

    Note

    The adjective names a device by the cable it has shed, and it does not compare: a thing is wireless or it is not. L. Frank Baum's Tik-Tok of Oz (1914) already pictures two magic instruments forming "a wireless telephone"; today the word sits just as easily on headphones and on charging.

  2. 2
    noununcountable
    Access to a computer network through a connection that uses no wires.

    The hotel's wireless was too slow for a video call, so she used her phone instead.

    Can you give me the password for the wireless?

    SimilarWi-Fi

    Note

    At home or in a hotel the word names the network connection itself, usually with the or a possessive: the wireless is down, your wireless, the password for the wireless. The signal comes from a router, so restarting that box is the usual first fix when the connection drops.

  3. 3
    adjective
    Having no wires of any kind.

    Many women switch to wireless bras for comfort, giving up the support of an underwire.

    Unlike the bendable version, this rag doll is wireless, so its arms and legs flop freely.

    Oppositewired

  4. 4
    noununcountable
    Radio as a medium of communication, used to send messages and broadcasts.

    Word of the rescue reached the mainland by wireless within the hour.

    Before television, families gathered in the evening to hear plays and concerts over the wireless.

    Similarradio

    Note

    Two patterns carry this sense: a message goes by wireless, with no article, while news and broadcasts come over the wireless. In George Goodchild's Death on the Centre Court (1935) a man skips Wimbledon on a hot day (why be "blooming well frizzled") because he can hear all the results over the wireless.

Less common meanings

  1. 5
    noundatedBritishcountable
    A radio set, the device used to listen to radio broadcasts.

    She kept a battered wireless on the kitchen windowsill and listened to the shipping forecast every night.

    I heard you on my wireless back in '52
    1979, Trevor Horn, Geoff Downes

    Similarradio

    Note

    This name for the set is chiefly British and now dated: most speakers say radio, and wireless lends a period air. It counts like any object, Otto English's Fake History (2021) finds "two old wirelesses" beside a black-and-white television, and "Video Killed the Radio Star" (1979) looks back to hearing a voice on one in 1952.

  2. 6
    verbobsoletetransitive
    To send a message or other information by radio.

    The expedition wirelessed news of its safe arrival to the base camp.

    At 3:30 A.M. a huge Zeppelin flew across the British battle line, wirelessing down to any Germans still to the westward the best way to get home.
    1919, William Charles Henry Wood, Flag and Fleet
    Note

    The verb belongs to radio's early decades, when airships and aircraft reported to the ground by it. A Zeppelin in William Charles Henry Wood's Flag and Fleet (1919) goes "wirelessing down" directions to stray German troops, and in Robert Byron's First Russia, Then Tibet (1933) a plane wirelesses a wreck's description to the mainland. It is now dated or obsolete; today one radios a message.

Practice

Can you tell the meanings of wireless apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.

Origin

Formed from wire + the suffix -less.