telephone

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   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 them on the telephone.

2. 2
   noun

   A telecommunication device which converts data or sounds (usually speech) into electrical signals which are then transmitted to enable two or more people to communicate with each other over a distance; now usually a device having a dial or keypad with numerals for entering a number, etc., to connect with a person, and means (such as a sound or vibration) for alerting one to an incoming call or transmission; also, the handset or receiver of such a device.

   The telephones so constructed were placed in different rooms. […] Upon singing into the telephone, the tones of the voice were reproduced by the instrument in the distant room. When two persons sang simultaneously into the instrument, two notes were emitted simultaneously by the telephone in the other house. […] I placed the membrane of the telephone near my mouth, and uttered the sentence, "Do you understand what I say?" Presently an answer was returned through the instrument in my hand. Articular words proceeded from the clock-spring attached to the membrane, and I heard the sentence, "Yes; I understand you perfectly."

3. 3
   noun

   A means of communicating information from one person to another or others.

   In the terminology associated with this phenomenon, Jach Pursel is known as a "channel"—a vehicle through which "entities" from other planes of existence choose to address human beings. In a more familiar metaphor, Jach is the telephone through which Lazaris places his long distance calls: very long distance calls.

4. 4
   noun

   Now chiefly preceded by a descriptive word: a simple communication device which converts sounds (usually speech) into mechanical vibrations along a string, wire, etc.

   string telephone    tin can telephone

5. 5
   noun

   A type of foghorn used for sending signals in the form of loud tones or musical notes, especially one invented in the 19th century by John Taylor, a captain in the British Royal Navy.

   It is not easy to say from these passages (which are all we could find on the subject) what plan [Edward] Davy had in contemplation. In the first quotation he speaks of bells, for which we may read a powerful trumpet at one end, and a concave reflector to focus the sound at the other end; or some arrangement like the compressed-air telephone, proposed by Captain Taylor, R.N., in 1844; […]

6. 6
   noun

   A communication device consisting of two aligned gutta-percha speaking tubes connected to parabolic reflectors which allows speech spoken into one tube to be sent through the air to the other one, invented in the 19th century by the British engineer Francis Whishaw (1804–1856); also, a speaking tube of such a device.

   While on the subject of gutta-percha, a few words may very well be given to Mr. Whishaw's inventions: among these are speaking-tubes, to supersede bells in private houses or offices. So extraordinary are the conducting powers of this new product, that a whisper may can be conveyed to long distances; […] [W]e are, it seems, to be able to speak to a distance without any connecting tube at all; across the inner quadrangle of a building, for instance, by means of large concave gutta-percha reflectors, fixed, one opposite to the other, […] [E]ach reflector would be mounted on a stand similar to that of a theodolite; and thus the portable telephone would be available where the telegraph, as at present arranged, does not admit of application.

7. 7
   noun

   A system of communication using musical notes, also known as Solresol, invented in 1828 by the French composer Jean-François Sudre (1787–1862).

   We extract from the France Musicale a few curious particulars relative to the invention of a kind of marine telegraph, called the "Telephone," invented by an ingenious Frenchman, Monsieur Sudre, and by which orders may be transmitted at night, when other means of communication fail. […] A commission […] verified by experiment the rapidity with which all naval commands could be communicated at night through the medium of a clarion, to a distance which may be increased to 2200 toises (about two miles) but which varies according to the state of the atmosphere. […] [T]he return of the same sounds guarantied to M. Sudre the perfect comprehension of his orders, and the Admiral congratulated him on his success.

8. 8
   noun

   Synonym of Chinese whispers (“a game for several players in which a phrase, whispered by each person in turn to their neighbour, is often unwittingly misunderstood as it is transferred, to humorous effect by the time it reaches the last person and is compared with the original phrase; (figurative) a situation where something is changed or misunderstood as a result of passing through successive people or processes”).

   And since the spring of 1995, no game of telephone has ended without some Simpsons-loving smart-ass dropping "purple monkey dishwasher" into the chain.

Etymology

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”). The suf…