terms of service

plural noun

: the legal terms (see term entry 1 sense 4) that set forth the nature, scope, and limits of a service (such as one offered through a website or an app) and the rules that the service's users must agree to follow

… Twitter users' complaints alerted the company that three of his messages violated the terms of service …

—Jake Tapper

… most people have no idea what is signed away when they click "agree" to binding terms of service contracts—again and again on phones, laptops, tablets, watches, e-readers and televisions.

—The New York Times

—abbreviation TOS

Examples of terms of service in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The German predator network managed to thrive despite clear violations of Telegram’s terms of service, again raising questions about how the platform has been used for criminal activity. — ABC News, 8 July 2026

Other platforms perform equivalent extraction while maintaining ambiguity in their terms of service. — Ashley Belanger, ArsTechnica, 2 July 2026

Moreover, that Google's standard cloud terms of service — which would prohibit uses leading to harm — did not apply to Project Nimbus. — Maia Niguel Hoskin, Forbes.com, 26 June 2026

Modding the glasses is against the terms of service, which voids your warranty. — Jon Martindale, PC Magazine, 10 June 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1994, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for terms of service

• interservice
• disservice
• preservice
• nervous
• nervus