Pixelation

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /pɪksəˈleɪʃən/

Definitions

1. The act of rendering an image with visible pixels, resulting in a reduced quality that may obscure fine details
2. The technique of displaying an image in a pixelated form, which creates a block-like look while hindering smoothness
3. A visual appearance of images composed of distinct square pixels that reduce clarity

Etymology: "Pixelation" is built from "pixel" plus the suffix "-ation", and the suffix carries most of the grammatical history. The "-ation" ending descends from Latin "-ātiō", which turned verbs into nouns of action, and it reached English by way of Old French "-ation". Its older ancestors run back through Italic forms to Proto-Indo-European, but in practice the suffix simply means "the act or process of" whatever the base word names. The base word is the modern one. "Pixel" was coined in the 1960s as a clipped form of "picture element", the name for the smallest dot of a digital image. Pixelation therefore began as a technical term about how such dots become visible, and only later came to describe the blocky, low-resolution look itself. The word did not exist before digital imaging, so its story is short and recent.

Synonyms: pixeling