Friday word: Chyron

[med_cat]

chyron, n. chy·ron \ˈkī-ˌrän\

: a caption superimposed over usually the lower part of a video image (as during a news broadcast)

The word is a proprietary term, and was trademarked by the Chyron Corporation in 1976 (the company is now known as ChyronHego), as a term for the crawling or stationary text that appears at the bottom of a television screen during a broadcast.

Chyron (which may be commonly found written with either a lower-case or an upper-case initial C) appears to be joining the ranks of many trademarked words which have moved into the realm of generic use (google, xerox, granola and heroin are a few of the others which have made a similar transition).

Recent example from the CNN scandal