wayback machine
See also: Wayback Machine
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From the WABAC machine in the animated cartoon Mister Peabody, from way back (“long ago”). According to Gerard Baldwin, one of the show's directors, the spelling was a reference to the UNIVAC I computer.
Noun
[edit]wayback machine (plural wayback machines)
- A time machine or other means of revisiting information about the past.
- 2008, Terry Thompson, Adventures in Graphica, →ISBN:
- I can't set Mr. Peabody's wayback machine to July 1, 1863, and take my entire class of fifth graders on a field trip to show them what the Battle of Gettysburg was like. I don't have a wayback machine.
- 2008, Lew Freedman, The 50 Greatest Plays in Chicago Bears Football History, →ISBN, page 42:
- The star middle linebacker, who will go down in history as one of the Bears' best and most popular players, willingly jumped in the wayback machine and stopped it on a game during his second NFL season.
- 2014, Michael Waldman, The Second Amendment: A Biography, →ISBN, page 111:
- Reduced to its core, originalism promises that judges can ride a constitutional wayback machine, taking orders from the esteemed Founders.
- 2014, Michael Mowbray, Shoot to Thrill: Speedlight Flash Techniques for Photographers, →ISBN:
- So let's set the wayback machine to 2009 to show an example of what I was doing back then.