Where Does the Word Pixel Come from?

Etymology. The word pixel is a combination of pix (from "pictures", shortened to "pics") and el (for "element"); similar formations with 'el' include the words voxel and texel. The word pix appeared in Variety magazine headlines in 1932, as an abbreviation for the word pictures, in reference to movies.

Where do pixels come from?

But where did the term pixel come from? Pixel is an abbreviation for picture element. The word was coined to describe the photographic elements of a television image. In 1969, writers for Variety magazine took pix (a 1932 abbreviation of pictures) and combined it with element to describe how TV signals came together.

What is pixel short for?

A pixel (short for picture element) is a single point in a picture. On the monitor of a computer, a pixel is usually a square. Every pixel has a color and all the pixels together are the picture.