shareware
noun
share·ware
ˈsher-ˌwer 
: software with usually limited capability or incomplete documentation which is available for trial use at little or no cost but which can be upgraded upon payment of a fee to the author
Examples of shareware in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
As the computer comes to life, a monitor sitting on top of the rack displays a MS-DOS-style text crawl that shows the computer extracting .CEC files from a self-extracting file called EGREEN23.EXE that was compressed using the v2.50 shareware version of PKSFX by PKWARE, copyright 1999.
—
Benj Edwards, Ars Technica, 11 Jan. 2023
Pages of free-to-download shareware games scrolled by.
—Benj Edwards, Ars Technica, 1 Dec. 2022
The company was built on a shareware model, encouraging users to download antiviral software for free and pay later.
—Sam Dean, Los Angeles Times, 23 June 2021
Since then there have been eight additional installments, as the games have spread from shareware and computers to the Game Boy Advance, the original Xbox and all the current consoles.
—Mike Snider, USA TODAY, 25 July 2019
Her event scores and instructional pieces act like shareware, software provided initially free for users to try, or like apps performing various artistic functions, decades before those terms were coined.
—Lucy Harvey, Smithsonian, 16 June 2017
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Benj Edwards, Ars Technica, 11 Jan. 2023
Pages of free-to-download shareware games scrolled by.
—Benj Edwards, Ars Technica, 1 Dec. 2022
The company was built on a shareware model, encouraging users to download antiviral software for free and pay later.
—Sam Dean, Los Angeles Times, 23 June 2021
Since then there have been eight additional installments, as the games have spread from shareware and computers to the Game Boy Advance, the original Xbox and all the current consoles.
—Mike Snider, USA TODAY, 25 July 2019
Her event scores and instructional pieces act like shareware, software provided initially free for users to try, or like apps performing various artistic functions, decades before those terms were coined.
—Lucy Harvey, Smithsonian, 16 June 2017
Dictionary Entries Near shareware
Cite this Entry
“Shareware.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shareware. Accessed 24 Nov. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
shareware
noun
share·ware
-ˌwa(ə)r
-ˌwe(ə)r
: software with usually only basic capability which is available for trial use at little or no cost but which can be upgraded for a fee
Love words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
Share