Word.ws English Dictionary

alt-tab

alt-tab verb: to switch windows in Microsoft Windows.

Verb (1)

alt-tab (third-person singular simple present alt-tabs, present participle alt-tabbing, simple past and past participle alt-tabbed)

  1. To switch windows in Microsoft Windows.

Noun capitalized: Alt-Tab

Alt-Tab (countable and uncountable, plural Alt-Tabs)

  1. A keyboard shortcut in Windows that switches between application-level windows, sorted by most recently active.
    1. (informal) An equivalent keyboard shortcut that switches between windows or applications, such as Windows-Tab, or Command-Tab on macOS.

Verb (2) capitalized: Alt-Tab

Alt-Tab (third-person singular simple present Alt-Tabs, present participle Alt-Tabbing, simple past and past participle Alt-Tabbed)

  1. (intransitive) 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

Forms of alt-tab

Verb
third-person singular presentalt-tabs
present participlealt-tabbing
past participlealt-tabbed
pastalt-tabbed
third-person singular presentAlt-Tabs
present participleAlt-Tabbing
past participleAlt-Tabbed
pastAlt-Tabbed
Noun
pluralAlt-Tabs

Origin of alt-tab

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

Questions about alt-tab

What does alt-tab mean?
Alt-tab means to switch windows in Microsoft Windows.
What part of speech is alt-tab?
Alt-tab can be a verb or a noun.
What is the past tense of alt-tab?
The past tense of alt-tab is alt-tabbed.

Words near alt-tab in the dictionary

  1. alt-rights
  2. alt-righty
  3. alt-rock
  4. alt-rocker
  5. alt-rockers
  6. alt-tab
  7. Alt-Tabbed
  8. Alt-Tabbing
  9. Alt-Tabs
  10. alt-tech
  11. alt-weeklies

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: alt-tab (page history and authors); Alt-Tab (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “alt-tab.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/alt-tab. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.