"World Wide Web, n." - Word of the Day from the OED

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Your word for today is: World Wide Web, n.

World Wide Web, n.

Pronunciation: Brit. /ˌwəːld wʌɪd ˈwɛb/, U.S. /ˈˌwər(ə)ld ˌwaɪd ˈwɛb/

Forms: also with lower-case initials.

Etymology: < worldwide adj. + web n.

The following, though an unrelated earlier instance of this phrase, nevertheless draws on a similar metaphor of a web-like communications network:

1965 J. Huxley & H. B. D. Kettlewell Charles Darwin & his World 128[Darwin] sat quietly at Down like a benevolent spider at the centre of a world-wide web of scientific communication.

  Chiefly with the. A widely used multimedia information system on the Internet, whereby documents stored at numerous locations worldwide are cross-referenced using hypertext links, which allow users to search for and access information by moving from one document to another. Also: the network of interlinked information that is accessible via this system. Abbreviated WWW, W3.

Often shortened to Web (see web n.Additions).

Although World Wide Web and Internet are frequently taken to be synonymous, the World Wide Web is only one of various systems (including email and peer-to-peer applications) which are facilitated by the Internet.

 

The system which became the World Wide Web began at the Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (CERN) in 1989, as an internal documentation project. Soon the main ideas of this system spread to other academic and research organizations. The technology proliferated in the 1990s, especially with the development of browsers and more powerful languages and search engines, leading to a rapid increase in the use of the World Wide Web by commercial companies and the general public, and the growth of e-commerce and the integration of the Web with other media including telephony.

1990 T. Berners-Lee & R. Cailliau (title of electronic document)WorldWideWeb: proposal for a HyperText project.

1992 T. Berners-Lee et al. in D. Perret-Gallix New Computing Techniques in Physics Res. II 157The World-Wide Web (W³) initiative encourages physicists to share information using wide-area networks.

1993 Compute Sept. 23/2 (advt.)To help you find the information you want, you'll have direct access to powerful search utilities such as 'Gopher', 'Hytelnet', 'WAIS', and 'the World-Wide Web'.

1996 Fast Company June–July 120/2Will the spread of World Wide Web technology inside companies—intranets—make traditional e-mail less important?

2001 San Diego Union-Tribune (Electronic ed.) 9 Jan. 4It's amazing to think today, with the World Wide Web now spanning some 7 million sites, that its creator could barely get his colleagues interested at first.

2005 A. Smith Accidental 149All those girls on the world wide web being endlessly broken in mundane-looking rooms on the internet.

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