Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The basic unit of a digital image, representing a single color or level of brightness.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun One of the tiny dots that make up the representation of an image in a computer's memory.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun (computer science) the smallest discrete component of an image or picture on a CRT screen (usually a colored dot)

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[pix + el(ement).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

pix, pictures + el(ement); often taken to be a blend of “picture” and “element”, but this does not account for the x. First attested 1965

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Examples

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  • the cat who walks through walls, as I grok it

    December 7, 2006