A V-chip is a small part built into a television that lets parents block programmes they do not want their children to see. It works with the rating that a programme carries — the little box in the corner saying who the programme is suitable for. A parent sets the television to refuse anything above a chosen level, locks the setting with a password, and after that the television will not show those programmes even if the child changes channel to them. The V stands for violence, because worry about violence on TV is what pushed the law through, but in practice the chip blocks by rating, so sex and rough language get caught too. In the United States a law from 1996 made this chip compulsory in new sets, so the word turns up a lot in writing from the late 1990s and early 2000s about children and television. Today it sounds a bit old. Children watch on phones and streaming apps, which have their own parental controls, so people now say "parental controls" or "parental lock" far more often than V-chip. You will still meet the word in articles about that period, in arguments about who should protect children from media, and sometimes as a joke — people say things like "I wish life had a V-chip". Note that it is written with a capital V and a hyphen.