Definition of Desktop

The work area on a computer screen that simulates the top of an actual desk. The desktop contains the Recycle Bin and other icons (shortcuts to programs, files, folders, and various types of documents such as letters, reports, or pictures) that you can arrange on the electronic desktop just as you would arrange real objects on top of a desk.

The work area on a computer screen that contains different groups- of apps or content open and available for different tasks or aspects of your life. Each group of items is called a desktop or virtual desktop.

A computer designed to sit on a desk (as opposed to a laptop). In Windows, it also means the screen you see when you aren’t running any programs, with ‘My Computer’, the Recycle Bin and so on.