graphical user interface

noun

plural graphical user interfaces

: a user interface that allows a computer user to interact easily with the computer typically by making choices from displayed menus or groups of icons

… how quickly the software companies can write new applications, or new versions of old applications, to take advantage of windows, icons, menus and mice, the principal elements of the graphical user interface.

—Peter H. Lewis

Examples of graphical user interface in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Windows 95 represented a dramatically different way to interact with a PC, by encompassing the majority of programs and tasks inside a graphical user interface (GUI). —Andrew Paul, Popular Science, 10 Apr. 2025

Using VirtualBox’s unattended install feature (the default setting), Oracle Linux installs itself as a command-line-only system with no graphical user interface (GUI). —Edward Mendelson, PCMAG, 6 Jan. 2025

System components included a lithium-ion battery, a microcontroller, Bluetooth module, resistors, capacitors, N-type and P-type MOSFETs, and linear regulators for wirelessly controlling the flavor channels via a graphical user interface (GUI) in the virtual environment. —Ars Technica, 26 Nov. 2024

The clueless top brass at Xerox’s headquarters sat by while Apple, and eventually everyone else, copied its graphical user interface. —Steven Levy, WIRED, 6 Dec. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1981, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for graphical user interface

• abase
• airspace
• apace
• backspace
• biface
• birthplace
• blackface
• boldface
• bookcase
• braincase
• briefcase
• carcase

Kids Definition

graphical user interface

noun

: software that simplifies the use of a computer especially by using icons and menus