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 serviceJake 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
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The theory is that incumbents’ term of service should be bound by the conditions that prevailed when the voters elected them — a contract of expectation. Carl Luna, San Diego Union-Tribune, 15 May 2026 But the court allowed the lawsuit to proceed on the theory that Meta may have breached its own terms of service by allowing scam ads to spread. David Ingram, NBC news, 12 May 2026 Liberty Home Guard is available across all 50 states, but the terms of service will vary by state. Jamela Adam, USA Today, 11 May 2026 The process known as distillation—using outputs from a larger AI model to train a smaller one—is prohibited in OpenAI’s terms of service. Chris Dobstaff, Forbes.com, 1 May 2026 See All Example Sentences for terms of service

Word History

First Known Use

1994, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of terms of service was in 1994

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Cite this Entry

“Terms of service.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/terms%20of%20service. Accessed 21 May. 2026.

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