Added 9 October 2026
telephone
/ˈtɛlɪfəʊn/ noun
In Latin: tēlephōnum, tēlephōnium First recorded: 1876 Wiktionary
noun Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about telephone at Wordnik → Where our words come from →
-
Electronic equipment that converts sound into electrical signals that can be transmitted over distances and then converts received signals back into sounds.
I talked to him on the telephone
- Transmitting speech at a distance.
verb
-
Get or try to get into communication (with someone) by telephone.
I tried to call you all night
Origin
The noun is derived from tele- (prefix meaning ‘from a distance’) + -phone (suffix denoting a device which makes a sound), modelled after German Telephon (“early apparatus converting sound into electrical signals”) (dated) (now German Telefon). The word was first used to refer to the modern device in 1876 by the Scottish-born Canadian-American engineer Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922). The prefix tele- is ultimately derived from Ancient Greek τῆλε (têle, “afar, far away, far off”), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷelh₁- (“to turn end-over-end; to revolve around; hence, to dwell, sojourn”).
From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)