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

The graphical user interface, which Apple popularized, adapted that file-and-folder paradigm into an abstraction of a desktop, where users would click and move those files around. —Ian Bogost, The Atlantic, 14 July 2025

In between the kernel and the graphical user interface is what's known as the application programming interface, or API. —IEEE Spectrum, 26 Apr. 2012

Harrison compares it to the days of command-line computing and the shift to the graphical user interface (GUI) in the ‘80s and ’90s. —Julian Chokkattu, Wired News, 9 June 2025

Indeed, MacPaint was the key app demonstrated at the Mac launch that showed us the potential of the Mac and a graphical user interface. —Tim Bajarin, Forbes.com, 9 June 2025

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