telephone

plural telephones

1. countablecommunicationsA 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.

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   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."

   1876 May 10 (date delivered), A[lexander] Graham Bell, “Researches in Telephony”, in Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, volume IV (New Series; volume XII overall), Boston, Mass.: Press of John Wilson and Son, published 1877, →ISSN, →OCLC, pages 7–8

   Synonyms: Ameche, blower, dog and bone, horn, phone, pipe, phone, blower

2. abbreviationarchaiccountablelater in IndiaShort for telephone call (“a connection established over a telephone network; a conversation held by the parties on this connection”).
3. countablefigurativelyA means of communicating information from one person to another or others.

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   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.

   1990, Earl Babbie, “Channels to Elsewhere”, in Thomas Robbins, Dick Anthony, editors, In Gods We Trust: New Patterns of Religious Pluralism in America, New Brunswick, N.J.; London: Transaction Publishers, →ISBN, part IV (Spiritual Innovation and the New Age), page 256

4. countablehistoricaluncountableNow 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

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   If a string of packthread be attached to the stem of a tuning fork, and the other end of the thread be wrapt round the little finger, and placed in the chamber of the ear, the sound of the fork, when made to vibrate, will be heard at the end of the thread, though two hundred yards distant, while it is altogether imperceptible to a bystander. It has been suggested, that telegraphs, or, more properly speaking, telephones, might be invented upon this principle. The author states that some such instruments have been already perfected, and are about to be exhibited, but we have as yet heard nothing of them.

   1832 August, “Art. II.—The Music of Nature; or An Attempt to Prove that what is Passionate and Pleasing in the Art of Singing, Speaking, and Performing upon Musical Instruments, is Derived from the Sounds of the Animated World. With Curious and Interesting Illustrations. By William Gardener. 8vo. pp. 530. London: Longman and Co. 1832. [book review]”, in The Monthly Review, volumes II (New and Improved Series), number IV, London: G. Henderson, […], →OCLC, page 496

   The days are behind us (I recall) when children played with makeshift telephones made from jam tins connected by string; […]

   2013, John Keane, “Communicative Abundance”, in Democracy and Media Decadence, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, pages 5–6

5. archaiccountablehistoricaluncountableA 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.

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   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; […]

   1899, J[ohn] J[oseph] Fahie, “First Period—The Possible”, in A History of Wireless Telegraphy 1838–1899: Including Some Bare-wire Proposals for Subaqueous Telegraphs, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, page 7

6. archaiccountablehistoricaluncountableA 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.

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   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.

   1849 June 30, “Gossip from London”, in William and Robert Chambers, editors, Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal, volume XI, number 287 (New Series), Edinburgh: William and Robert Chambers; London: W[illiam] S[omerville] Orr, →OCLC, page 408, column 1

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

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   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.

   1841 December, “[Miscellaneous.] Musical Telegraph.”, in The American Repertory of Arts, Sciences, and Manufactures, volume IV, number 5, New York, N.Y.: W. A. Cox, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 375

8. CanadaUSuncountablegamesSynonym 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.

   2013 October 27, Erik Adams, “The Simpsons (Classic): ‘The PTA Disbands’”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 16 Oct 2025

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   [T]he assistant dean of students, having intervened to clear the way for Jones’ return to class, told Jones that [Tina] Chanter had told him that someone had told her that Jones had told someone something that made them think Jones wanted to blow up the philosophy building. […] [B]oth she [Azadeh Erfani] and Jones now wonder whether, in some transmutational chain of retellings among other students, or perhaps even as the word of this hallucination reached Chanter's ears, Jones' vision of puffing away a wall of weak atomic links had morphed into a scarier vision of her blowing a building to pieces with a bomb. […] In other words, [Nev] Jones' career and life may have been derailed because a game of telephone went bad.

   2017 October 3, David Dobbs, “The Touch of Madness”, in Pacific Standard, number 59, Santa Barbara, Calif.: Miller-McCune Center for Research, Media and Public Policy, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 23 Aug 2025

   Synonyms: Chinese whispers

present singular third person telephones · participle present telephoning · participle past telephoned · past telephoned

1. transitiveTo convey (information, a message, news, etc.) using a telephone (noun sense 1).

   David telephoned his apologies to his mother. On the way we had had our first puncture, and had taken some time to change the wheel, as we were unable to find the jack.

   1926, Robert Byron, chapter V, in Europe in the Looking-glass: Reflections of a Motor Drive from Grimsby to Athens, London: George Routledge & Sons […], →OCLC, part 1, page 31

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   He telephoned what he knew to his chief, the information such as to cause the smug complacency of that gentlemen in his henchman's prowess to vanish from his expression, […]

   1961, Xavier Herbert, Soldiers’ Women, Sydney, N.S.W.: Angus and Robertson, →OCLC, page 395

2. transitiveTo (attempt to) contact (someone) using a telephone.

   The length ganger saw the train passing with the van derailed and promptly telephoned the Sandbach signalman, who restored his signals to danger, but not in time to stop the train before the final derailment occurred.

   1961 November, “Talking of Trains: Derailment near Holmes Chapel”, in Trains Illustrated, London: Ian Allan Publishing, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 652

   Synonyms: call, call up, drop someone a line, ring, ring up, phone

3. obsoletetransitiveTo provide (a place) with a telephone system.

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   The London County Council prepared careful estimates for telephoning London in 1898, and those estimates were submitted to Parliament. It contended that it could provide a telephone service for the County Council area of London at £38 per subscriber capital outlay, after setting aside the necessary funds for the debt charge and after paying the Post Office the 10 per cent. royalty.

   1901 December 14, J. Williams Benn, “The Telephone Deal”, in The Speaker: The Liberal Review, volume V (New Series), number 115, London; Paris: Cassell and Co., […], →OCLC, page 296, column 1

4. obsoletetransitiveTo transmit (sounds) over a distance.

   Do you hear the chemical accents of the sun? / Do you telephone the roar of the waters over the earth?

   1923, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “[Trees] Bare Almond-trees”, in Birds, Beasts and Flowers: Poems, London: Martin Secker […], →OCLC, stanza 3, page 44

5. intransitiveTo (attempt to) contact someone using a telephone; to make a telephone call.

   The only chance we had was to telephone to the manager of the hotel in Calgary to send two bottles of Scotch without fail by the next train leaving Calgary for the west.

   1971, Martin Nordegg, “Convincing a European Expert”, in T. D. Regehr, editor, The Possibilities of Canada are Truly Great: Memoirs 1906–1924, Toronto, Ont.: Macmillan of Canada, →OCLC, page 89

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   I came down like a wolf on the fold, didn't I? Why didn't I telephone? Strategy, my dear boy, strategy. This is a surprise attack, and I'd no wish that the garrison, forewarned, should escape.

   1913, Robert Barr, “The Mad Miss Maturin”, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad, London; Melbourne, Vic.; Toronto, Ont.: Ward, Lock & Co., →OCLC, page 139

   Having completed their task, Fireman Page telephoned from a lineside box to the next signal cabin, briefly reported the incident and said that, as no high explosive had dropped and the track was safe, they proposed proceeding "at caution".

   1944 July–August, “Top Link Drivers: XXI—Driver H. Blunt, L.N.E.R.”, in The Railway Magazine, London: Tothill Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 226