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alt-tab

noun, verb — 4 senses

Alt-Tab

nounalso spelled Alt-Tab
1

Computing, Engineering, Graphical user interface, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences A keyboard shortcut in Windows that switches between application-level windows, sorted by most recently active.

2

Computing, Engineering, Graphical user interface, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences Informal An equivalent keyboard shortcut that switches between windows or applications, such as Windows-Tab, or Command-Tab on macOS.

alt-tab

verb

Etymology From the Microsoft Windows keyboard sequence Alt + Tab used to switch windows.

1

Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences To switch windows in Microsoft Windows.

Alt-Tab

verb
1

Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences To switch between windows or applications by pressing Alt-Tab (or equivalent).

  • If I Alt-Tabbed through all other open programs, eventually returning to the screen from which the cursor disappeared, it would reappear and everything seemed fine.1996, PC Magazine, volume 15, numbers 13–16, page 87:
  • ‘Oh, good,’ said Professor Wright brightly, Alt-tabbing to her calendar and skimming the appointment.2014, B. T. O’Brien, chapter 25, in The Kong Meng Legacy, page 170:
1 more example
  • At times when I was deep in the middle of a calculation, that sudden shudder of my chair and his shrill voice pulled me out of my semi-trance state as I alt-tabbed to hide any confidential data and turned my chair around to entertain his novel question.2024, Prakhar Gupta, Mudit Yadav, chapter 14, in Don't Shut Up: How to Talk So the World Listens:

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — authors: page histories for Alt-Tab and alt-tab.