telephony

Etymology

It is formed from English tele- + -phony, after telephone.^[2][3][4] The OED, which revised the entry in 2016, takes its first sense from French téléphonie (1834) and its second from German Telephonie, used in that sense from 1861.^[2] The Shorter Oxford likewise points to French for the first sense and probably German for the second,^[5] while Etymonline and Dictionary.com derive it from telephone with the suffix -y.^[6][7] Merriam-Webster treats it as an international scientific word.^[3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A system for communicating over long distances with musical notes, each note in a range of three octaves standing for a meaning, devised by a French musician: first recorded in the Athenæum in July 1835.^[2][8][6] This sense is now obsolete.^[5][8]

Semantic evolution

The word, like telephone itself, first named a signalling system with musical sounds, and was also used of other early forms of telephone.^[8][6][5] With A. G. Bell's electric telephone it was transferred to the sending of sound, especially speech, over a distance by turning it into electrical signals: the OED's first quotation is from Bell himself, in 1877.^[2][6] The 1989 edition of the OED dated this second sense, the art or science of making telephones and the working of them, to 1861, following the German use.^[8][2] In later use the word covers the transmission of speech, and in some contexts of data, by telephone systems in general;^[2] the modern dictionaries define it as a system of telecommunication for speech and other sounds.^[9][3] The American Heritage Dictionary adds the technology and manufacture of telephone equipment.^[10]

Timeline

• 1835 – a system of long-distance signalling with musical notes (now obsolete).^[2][8][3]
• 1861 – the art or science of making and working telephones, after German use.^[8][2]
• 1877 – the transmission of speech over a distance by electrical signals.^[2][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A system of telecommunication for transmitting speech and other sounds over a distance, especially by telephone: The firm moved its office calls to internet telephony.^[9][3][2]
2. The technology and manufacture of telephone equipment.^[10][5]

Word family

• telephonist
• radiotelephony
• wireless telephony

Related words

• telephone
• telegraphy
• phonetic
• symphony

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
5. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b c d e f Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin