sidebar

noun

side·​bar ˈsīd-ˌbär 

1

a

: a short news story or graphic accompanying and presenting sidelights of a major story

b

: something incidental : sidelight

a sidebar to the essay's central theme

2

: a conference between the judge, the lawyers, and sometimes the parties to a case that the jury does not hear

Examples of sidebar in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The lineup includes the official competition and out-of-competition titles, the films in the main festival sidebar Un Certain Regard, as well as special and midnight screenings and the Cannes premiere selection. —Scott Roxborough, The Hollywood Reporter, 11 Apr. 2024

Like many photo programs, the left sidebar has image sources, including hard drives, and ACDSee Mobile Sync, which sucks up photos and videos from your smartphone via the ACDSee Mobile Sync app. —PCMAG, 26 Mar. 2024

First up is the availability of Copilot in Microsoft 365 in Windows, which means that the standard Copilot sidebar in Windows 11 will be able to access all of a user's Microsoft 365 data, including emails, meetings, chats, documents, as well as the web. —Michael Muchmore, PCMAG, 21 Mar. 2024

Rotate visuals like sidebar placement, quote styles, and subheading colors so each story isn't a cookie-cutter replica. —Renae Gregoire, Forbes, 19 Feb. 2024

The end result is a single specification and certification program that can work across multiple countries (see sidebar). —Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, The Verge, 19 Mar. 2024

Look for the trash can inside the left sidebar in Gmail and click on it. —Boone Ashworth Lauren Goode, WIRED, 17 Mar. 2024

Natural capital accounting, which U.S. statistical agencies are developing as a sidebar to their measurements of gross domestic product, puts numbers on those services. —Lydia Depillis, New York Times, 18 Feb. 2024

There’s No Other Land, screening in the documentary section of Berlin’s Panorama sidebar, about Israeli settler violence in the West Bank, directed by a Palestinian-Israeli collective. —Scott Roxborough, The Hollywood Reporter, 8 Feb. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1928, in the meaning defined at sense 2

Legal Definition

sidebar

noun

side·​bar ˈsīd-ˌbär 

: sidebar conference

had failed to request a sidebar before injecting the collateral offense into the trial

—Dockery v. State, 659 So. 2d 219 (1994)

also : the place near or before the bench where a sidebar conference takes place

the judge informed both attorneys…that they…could stand at sidebar while questions were posed

—Commonwealth v. Urena, 632 N.E.2d 1200 (1994)

compare bench, stand

sidebar adjective