Meanings
plural picturephones
- videophone
The program has twelve picturephones that link Illinois State Psychiatric Institute (ISPI) with Illinois State Pediatric Institute (one city block away) […]
1975, Rashid Bashshur, Patricia A. Armstrong, Zakhour I. Youssef, Telemedicine1 more example
So a long time ago, I was a true believer in picturephones as the logical extension of the telephone. Although the design I suggested for 2001 was clearly fiction, AT&T spent $500 million in designing and manufacturing its picturephone of the early 1970s.
2013, A. Michael Noll, Highway of Dreams
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
From picture + phone; a trademark of the 1960s for the earliest such device.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
picturephone. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/picturephone
“picturephone.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/picturephone. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “picturephone,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/picturephone.
Source: picturephone on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.