chyron

chy·ron
C3H4Y4R1O1N1
UK/ˈkaɪɹɒn/US/ˈkaɪɹɑn/

noun

A set of graphics or words at the bottom of a television screen, sometimes unrelated to the current viewing content.

RareScrabble 14

Meanings

chyron1

nounchyron (plural chyrons)

plural chyrons

  1. USbroadcastingA set of graphics or words at the bottom of a television screen, sometimes unrelated to the current viewing content.

    Chyron. Words shown on a video screen. Also known as a super. A slash (/) indicates a line break in a Chyron message in a script.

    2015, Charles Marsh, David W. Guth, Bonnie Poovey Short, “Broadcast/Podcast Writing”, in Strategic Writing: Multimedia Writing for Public Relations, Advertising, and More, 3rd edition, Abingdon, Oxon.; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 13
    5 more examples

    Chyrons (electronically enlarged words or numbers superimposed on the screen) might be used to illustrate and compare budget figures or to emphasize a quote.

    1982, Judy Woodruff, Kathleen Maxa, “This is Judy Woodruff at the White House”, Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 63

    Chyron recognition: A celebrity who needs no electronically inserted title or caption (a chyron) to identify him or her on television, especially news programs or interview shows.

    1999, Rodger W[illiam] Claire, Entertainment 101: An Industry Primer, Beverly Hills, Calif.: Pomegranate Press, →ISBN

    The ABC broadcast also began to use Chyrons, which "generated brightly colored maps, charts, graphs, and illustrations and imposed text over pictures. A red slash, like the one on the cover of Time magazine, was superimposed on stories, in an effort to give ABC's newscast a distinctive identity."

    2004, James T. Hamilton, All the News That's Fit to Sell: How the Market Transforms Information into News, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, →ISBN, page 170

    In the days before desktop video production software, such as Final Cut Pro and After Effects, making even a simple black and white title was a tough business. Creating broadcast-quality video titles required a specialized piece of expensive equipment called a Chyron generator and a highly skilled Chyron operator to run it. In fact, there was a time when Chyron operators made a good living because they were the only ones who knew how to make good, professional quality titles.

    2006, Ian David Aronson, DV Filmmaking: From Start to Finish, Sebastopol, Calif.: O'Reilly Media, →ISBN, page 168

    The TV images that would shake American politics like none had since Watts in 1965 began innocuously enough: on NBC, above a chyron reading taped, it looked like a busy New York rush hour, though some are holding handkerchiefs to their faces. […] [T]he hemmed-in cops threw tear-gas canisters across the street at the apex of the marchers' U-turn […] grant park, chicago, illinois, the chyron now reads, and a woman's voice says, "The kids are still marching, it looks like a whole gathering of people with terrible colds"; […]

    2008 May, Rick Perlstein, Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America, New York, N.Y.: Scribner, →ISBN, page 321

    Synonyms: lower third, aston

verbchyron (third-person singular simple present chyrons, present participle chyroning, simple past and past participle chyroned)

present singular third person chyrons · participle present chyroning · participle past chyroned · past chyroned

  1. UStransitivebroadcastingTo display (material) on screen by this technology.

chyron2

nounchyron (plural chyrons)

plural chyrons

  1. alternativeAlternative spelling of ciron (“the itch-mite (Sarcoptes scabiei), which infects the skin”).

Synonyms & antonyms

nounA set of graphics or words at the bottom of a television screen, sometimes unrelated to the current viewing content.

Origin

Genericization of the trademark Chyron, from Chiron (“centaur of Greek mythology”).

Full word history & related roots →

Rhymes & wordplay

Sounds the same

Anagrams

Cite this entry
APA

chyron. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/chyron

MLA

“chyron.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/chyron. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “chyron,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/chyron.

Source: chyron on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.