carriage return

character which returns the cursor or the print head to the beginning of the line

Originally, carriage return was the term for the control character in Baudot code on a teletypewriter for end of line return to beginning of line and did not include line feed. Later it was used for a mechanism or lever on a typewriter that would cause the cylinder on which the paper was held (the carriage) to return to the left side of the paper after a line of text had been typed, and would usually move the paper to the next line as well. The first power carriage return was added to electric typewriters by Smith Corona in 1960. The key for this was usually labelled "carriage return" or "return". To improve the keyboard for non-English-speakers, the symbol was introduced to mark this key, since this graphic could communicate the action of the key without using words.
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<character> (CR, Control-M, ASCII 13) The character which causes the cursor to move to the left margin, often used with line feed to start a new line of output.
Encoded in C and Unix as "\r".
(1996-06-24)

Noun
1. the operation that prepares for the next character to be printed or displayed as the first character on a line
(hypernym) printing operation