What are "display ads"?

[Big Mountain]

Sorry if this is a stupid question but this has been vexing me lately and I can't seem to google up any kind of straight answer.

What exactly are "display ads"?

I've seen this phrase bandied about a lot of the webmaster newsletters and articles lately and I have no idea what it means.

Anybody?

P.S. My level of expertise with online advertising is that I've been an Adsense publisher for about three years.

[Linda Buquet]

Display ads are simply a banner ad. Could be a text ad, but typically they are banner ads.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say. Display advertising - Wikipedia