Word.ws English Dictionary

I-beam

I-beam noun: a beam with cross-section shaped like a capital letter I (with serifs top and bottom), used in construction.

i-beam: a beam with cross-section shaped like a capital letter I (with serifs top and bottom), used in...
Image: Todd Murray, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

I-beam (plural I-beams)

  1. A beam with cross-section shaped like a capital letter I (with serifs top and bottom), used in construction.
  2. A cursor shaped like the letter I, usually indicating text that can be edited or selected.
    • In general, the cursor image is the primary concern, with different types used to indicate selected functions such as I-beams or vertical bars for text editing, a pencil for drawing, or a hand with the index finger extended […]1992, Ben Ezzell, Borland C++ 3.0 programming

Forms of I-beam

pluralI-beams

Origin of I-beam

Since it resembles a capital letter I with serifs.

Questions about I-beam

What does I-beam mean?
I-beam means a beam with cross-section shaped like a capital letter I (with serifs top and bottom), used in construction.
What part of speech is I-beam?
I-beam is a noun.
What is the plural of I-beam?
The plural of I-beam is I-beams.

Words near I-beam in the dictionary

  1. i-adjective
  2. i-adjectives
  3. i-banking
  4. I-bar
  5. I-bars
  6. I-beam
  7. I-beams
  8. i-breve
  9. i-breves
  10. I-ch'ang
  11. I-chou

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: I-beam (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.

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