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Glite Dictionary
🪖 Military police 📷 Megapixel unit
MP

MP

11 4.7
One million small dots that make up a digital picture
  • noun
  • /ɛm pi/
  • Informal
translation icon : megapíxel
  • Besides, it's the phone that takes 8 MP pics, not the tablet.

Examples

  • The Surface RT packs two 1MP cameras: one on the front, one on the back.

    Blog text (14)

  • The difference between a 5mp, 8mp, and 13mp camera on cell phones is negligible.

    Blog text (12)

  • However, a 6.2 MP camera provides only 3008x2000 pixels.

    Academic text (2008)

  • My fully automated Kodak 850 (5.1MP) 12X Zoom, compact digital camera worked well with the night scene mode.

    Academic text (2009)

  • The new smartphone has a remarkable 48 MP camera that captures stunning images.

  • Professionals often prefer a camera with at least 20 MP for clear prints.

  • This digital camera is advertised as having 16 MP, making it suitable for high-resolution photography.

Synonyms

megapixel
vsMP
  • Specialized
12 3.7

A unit of one million small dots used to show how detailed a photo is

is the informal abbreviation form of the same unit

How Detailed

MP
  • Informal
11 4.7
resolution
  • Specialized
91 3.9

Surface Forms

MP singular
MPs plural

Morphology

MP = megapixel (semi-transparent) = M + P

The abbreviation 'MP' is an initialism/clipping of 'megapixel', so learners who know the technical term can map it directly. [Postprocessing: changed transparency from 'transparent' to 'semi-transparent' for abbreviation]

Etymology

MP stands for mega + pixel, where mega means 'million' and pixel means 'picture element', the tiny dot in a digital photo. So, saying a camera is '24 MP' means it captures about 24 million of those tiny dots, which explains why MP is used to talk about a photo's detail.