screensaver
Part of speech: noun
Morphological type: derivation
Topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
software
Etymology: Etymology tree
English screen
Proto-Indo-European *solh₂-
Proto-Indo-European *-wós
Proto-Indo-European *sl̥h₂-wós
Proto-Italic *salawos
Latin salvus
Proto-Indo-European *-h₂
Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂
Proto-Indo-European *-yéti
Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti
Proto-Italic *-āō
Latin -ō
Latin salvō
Latin salvāre
Old French sauverbor.
Middle English saven
English save
Proto-Indo-European *-yósder.
Proto-Italic *-āzijos
Latin -āriusnom.
Latin -āriusbor.
Proto-Germanic *-ārijaz
Proto-West Germanic *-ārī
Old English -ere
Middle English -ere
English -er
English saver
English screensaver
From screen + saver.
Inflected forms:
form: screensavers
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: screen saver
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: screen-saver
pos: noun
tags: alternative
Senses:
gloss: A computer program that displays aesthetic patterns or images when the computer is not being used, originally intended to prevent screenburn.
pos: noun
examples: I configured my screensaver to appear after only two minutes, because I enjoyed watching it so much.
gloss: The background picture of a computer, smartphone, or similar mobile device.
pos: noun
tags: proscribed
examples: But she changed her screensaver, which was a photo of Julian eating scrambled eggs—he was smiling, holding his fork away from himself, as if he were waving the eggs at her—and replaced it with a photo of Olivia, looking up from her desk […]
If he wanted praise, or sympathy, or the chance to talk over a sensitive subject, he turned to me. A friend told me that she sat down at her computer one day to discover that her husband had changed her screensaver to read: “Be nice to Lloyd.
You can tell a lot about a person by the desk they keep. Her real name was Mary Stachowicz but we decided to call her Jenny Talia. It's funnier for us. She uses bulldog clips, which I think is a bit lesbiany, but I guess it's right for the character. Her screensaver is a picture of Cher, not the actual Cher, but her mother in fancy dress.
While we waited for Zac to be taken into surgery, I thought of all of his suffering up to this point […] It brought to mind the screensaver that Zac, a few months earlier, had changed his Ipod to.
When I arrived at the lab this morning he was back sitting in front of his computer, a million miles away, leaning forward on his elbows and staring into the depths of space. He has changed his screensaver again. The Orion nebula has been replaced with some other astronomical scape, far bleaker in its appearance but more realistic. It looks like the outermost edge of the universe.
I tiptoed over to Trent's nightstand and took his phone into the bathroom. I sat on the edge of the bathtub as I entered his code. When I saw that he'd changed his screensaver from our wedding picture to a picture of Diamond, my blood began to boil. I couldn't believe that he'd done that.
She sat at the desk and opened the drawers, then looked up at the computer screen and gave a snort.
 “Sally has Alex's picture as her screensaver. Ha, you'd think she'd be worried he'd see it. […]”
Translations: