Etymology

speedrun

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Today it means: A playthrough of a computer or video game in which the whole game or a select part of it, such as a single level, is played with the intent of completing it as quickly as possible, optionally with certain prerequisites. Full definition →

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The story

From speed + run. There are isolated attestations of the term as far back as the 19th century, mostly hyphenated as speed-run and in an engineering context; it is unlikely that these cases influenced the modern form.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.