username

noun

us·​er·​name ˈyü-zər-ˌnām 

variants or less commonly user name

plural usernames also user names

: a sequence of characters that identifies a user (such as on a computer system, website, or social media platform)

Never reuse a username and password combination. While doing so is convenient, if that combination is ever stolen from one service you use … it will expose every service you have that uses it.

—Rachel Cericola

These e-mail addresses generally look like this: "[e-mail]".

—Walter S. Mossberg

called also user ID

Examples of username in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The video shared on Instagram in September by their owner, under the username @jimmy_and_beaks, shows the two felines getting carried around while on a countryside hike with their owners, each of them in a different backpack. —Mark R. Weaver, Newsweek, 5 Nov. 2024

Under the username PsychoticMammal, Kofsky posted about using cocaine, opiates, kratom, and many others for more than a decade. —Makena Kelly, WIRED, 4 Nov. 2024

Everything from forgetting a password or even the username used as part of the login credentials, having issues with two-factor authentication, an inability to reset a password using the account recovery process, someone else logging in and locking them out, and so on. —Davey Winder, Forbes, 26 Oct. 2024

What if Todd, who had otherwise been so careful, had logged in under the wrong username this one time? —Gideon Lewis-Kraus, The New Yorker, 9 Oct. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1971, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

username

noun

: a sequence of characters that identifies a user when logging onto a computer or website

called also user ID