online

adjective more online · most online · on-line

1. Of a generator or power plant: connected to the grid.
2. Of a computer: actively connected to the Internet or to some other communications service. Is this modem online?
3. Available over, or delivered from, the Internet. In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result. If the bumf arrived electronically, the take-up rate was 0.1%. And
4. Connected to the Internet. I'll be online tonight, so I'll be able to reply to your email.
5. Available on a computer system, even if not networked. Press the F1 key to access the online help.
6. Of a system: active, particularly building facilities (such as power) or a factory or power plant. The power is online.
7. slang Immersed in Internet culture. (Usually modified by an intensifier such as extremely or terminally) terminally online
8. of an algorithm Able to process an input piece-by-piece without needing to have the entire input available to it from the start. An on–line algorithm is presented for constructing the suffix tree for a given string in time linear in the length of the string. The new algorithm has the desirable property of processing the string symbol by symbol from left to right. It has always the suffix tree for the scanned part of the strin

   Opposite: offline

Opposite: offline, hardcopy, brick and mortar, living under a rock

adverb on-line

1. not comparable While online; while in a running or active state, or connected to the Internet. He works online.

verb onlines · onlining · onlined · on-line

1. transitive To bring (a system, etc.) online; to promote to an active or running state. The output in Listing 8-2 shows your disk group status prior to onlining the disks, the commands to online your disks, and the status after onlining.