DNS stands for Domain Name System. It’s like the phone book of the Internet. When you type a website name (like google.com) into your browser, your computer doesn’t understand names—it needs an IP address (like 142.250.190.78) to connect to the right server. DNS takes the human-friendly name and translates it into the numerical IP address that computers use. This makes the web easier for people to use because we don’t have to memorize long strings of numbers.