scan·ner

[skan-er]
noun
1.
a person or thing that scans.
2.
optical scanner. See under optical scanning.
3.
Photography. any device for exposing an image on film, a sensitized plate, etc., by tracing light along a series of many closely spaced parallel lines.
4.
(in aerial photography) a device for estimating the ratio of aircraft speed to aircraft altitude.
5.
a photoelectric device for scanning a picture to determine automatically the density of the hue or value in each area for transmission by wire or radio or for preparation of color process printing plates.
6.
a computer-aided electronic system using photoelectric cells to separate copy, as color illustrations, into its primary colors, correct color copy, and produce a set of color separations ready for proofing or printing.
7.
Radio. a radio receiver, used especially by police, firefighters, and the press, that continuously tunes to preselected frequencies, broadcasting any signal that it detects.
8.
Medicine/Medical, Biology. a device for examining a body, organ, tissue, or other biologically active material.


Origin:
1550–60; scan + -er1

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
Cite This Source Link To scanner
00:10
Scanner is always a great word to know.
So is process cinematography. Does it mean:
a shot that views the action from the opposite side of the previous shot, giving the effect of looking from one actor to the other.
in which the main action is superimposed on or combined with simulated or separately filmed background action to produce special visual effects
Collins
World English Dictionary
scanner (ˈskænə) [Click for IPA pronunciation guide]
 
n
1.  a person or thing that scans
2.  a device, usually electronic, used to measure or sample the distribution of some quantity or condition in a particular system, region, or area
3.  an aerial or similar device designed to transmit or receive signals, esp radar signals, inside a given solid angle of space, thus allowing a particular region to be scanned
4.  CAT scanner nuclear magnetic resonance scanner See ultrasound scanner any of various devices used in medical diagnosis to obtain an image of an internal organ or part
5.  informal a television outside broadcast vehicle
6.  short for optical scanner
7.  printing an electronic device which scans printed material and converts it to digital form

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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FOLDOC
Computing Dictionary

scanner definition


1. An input device that takes in an optical image and digitises it into an electronic image represented as binary data. This can be used to create a computerised version of a photo or illustration.
A scanner may be linked to optical character recognition software allowing printed documents to be converted to electronic text without having to type them in at a keyboard.
2. lexical analyser.
(1995-02-14)

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © Denis Howe 2010 http://foldoc.org
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Example sentences
If shopping for clothes is not your idea of fun, you may want to head to a body scanner near you.
Scanner operators can miss pages or scan them out of order.
During the test, you lie on a table that moves underneath a scanner called a gamma camera.
The scanner can tell where the radioactive material has gathered in the body.
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