line-at-a-time printer
- noun
- /ˈlaɪn əˌt̬ə ˈtaɪm ˈprɪntɚ/
- Archaic
:
impresora de línea
- The line-at-a-time printer was much faster than older character printers for large reports.
Examples
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The line-at-a-time printer produces text quickly.
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Many offices still use a line-at-a-time printer for their needs.
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Early mainframe systems often relied on a line-at-a-time printer for generating invoices.
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Replacing the line-at-a-time printer with a laser printer improved the quality of our documents.
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Early mainframe systems often relied on a line-at-a-time printer to generate invoices efficiently.
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Replacing the line-at-a-time printer with a laser printer greatly enhanced the clarity of our documents.
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The line-at-a-time printer is more efficient than older models when printing large reports.
Synonyms
1
4.4
A fast machine that prints whole lines of text at once
How Fast
- Specialized
- Archaic
- Specialized
Surface Forms
Morphology
line-at-a-time + printer
The meaning is directly and transparently built from the parts: a 'printer' that prints a 'line at a time.' Even though 'line-at-a-time' is a multiword modifier, its components ('line', 'at', 'a', 'time') are basic and the compositional pattern (modifier + noun) clearly signals the intended function. A B1 learner who knows the constituent words would reliably infer this technical sense.
Etymology
Line-at-a-time printer comes from how the machine worked: it printed a whole line 'at a time' instead of one letter at a time, so it was faster for long reports. So the phrase means a printer that prints an entire line of text at once.