stereo

Definitions

General English

noun a machine which plays music or other sound through two different loudspeakers

Computing

adjective used to describe sound recorded onto two separate channels from two separate microphone elements and played back through a pair of headphones or two speakers

Information & Library Science

noun an audio system or device that reproduces stereophonic sound

Media Studies

noun photography using stereoscopy

Publishing

noun a duplicate printing plate, cast in metal or plastic from a mould taken from metal type

Origin & History of “stereo”

Greek stereós meant ‘solid’. The earliest English compound noun formed from it was stereometry (16^th c.), a mathematical term denoting the measurement of solid or three-dimensional objects. this was followed by stereographic (17^th c.), stereotype (18^th c.) (coined in French and originally used for a ‘solid’ printing block; the metaphorical ‘unvaried or conventional image’ emerged in the middle of the 19th century), stereoscope (19^th c.) (a viewer for producing ‘solid’ or three-dimensional images), and stereophonic ‘producing three-dimensional sound’ (20^th c.). Stereo was used in the 19th century as an abbreviation for stereotype and stereoscopic; its use for stereophonic dates from the early 1950s.

Nearby Definitions of “stereo”

Contexts for “stereo”

5 definitions in context

Origin & History