online

Etymology

1950, from on + line.

adj

1. Of a system: connected (generally electrically) to a larger network.
   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?
2. 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 for online adverts the “conversion” into sales was a minuscule 0.01%. 2013-05-25, “No hiding place”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8837, page 74
   I prefer to read online newspapers.
3. Connected to the Internet.
   I'll be online tonight, so I'll be able to reply to your email.
4. Available on a computer system, even if not networked.
   Press the F1 key to access the online help.
   The program comes with an online manual, supplied on compact disc.
5. Of a system: active, particularly building facilities (such as power) or a factory or power plant.
   The power is online.
   Once this factory comes online, it will double car production in our country!
6. (slang) Immersed in Internet culture. (Usually modified by an intensifier such as extremely or terminally)
   To borrow an idiom from the extremely online, late Godard is a mood. 2019, A.O. Scott, “'The Image Book' Review: Godard Looks at Violence, and Movies”, in The New York Times

adv

1. While online; while in a running or active state, or connected to the Internet.
   He works online.
   Well, things are getting pretty serious right now. I mean, we chat online for, like, two hours every day so I guess you could say things are gettin' pretty serious. 2004, Jared Hess, Jerusha Hess, Napoleon Dynamite (motion picture), spoken by Kip (Aaron Ruell)

verb

1. (computing, 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. 2013, John Clarke, Oracle Exadata Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach, page 219