The Domain Name System (DNS) translates human-friendly domain names like www.example.com into the machine-readable IP addresses like 208.77.188.166 that devices use to locate each other on the internet. It distributes responsibility for assigning domain names and IP addresses across multiple authoritative name servers. By providing a distributed, world-wide keyword redirection service, DNS is an essential component that allows people and computers to connect to resources on the internet through meaningful names instead of numeric addresses.