television

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈtel.ɪ.vɪʒ.ᵊn/^[1]

Etymology

It is a compound, from English tele- + vision,^[2][3][4] or it is borrowed from French télévision.^[2][3][5] The first part comes ultimately from Greek and means “far off”; the second goes back to Latin vidēre (“to see”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

1907, of a theoretical system for transmitting moving images over telegraph or telephone wires,^[2][3] before the invention had been perfected.^[6] The OED has an example from 1904.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Other names proposed for the hypothetical technology were telephote (1880) and televista (1904).^[2] Working electronic television was developed in the 1920s and 1930s,^[3][2] and John Logie Baird first demonstrated it in 1926.^[6] Television as a broadcasting service or medium is from 1927,^[2][7] and a television set from 1941 in Etymonline^[2] and 1955 in the OED.^[7] The editor C. P. Scott objected that the word was half Greek and half Latin.^[6] The abbreviation TV is from 1948, and tee-vee by 1949.^[2] German calqued the word as Fernsehen.^[2]

Timeline

• 1904 – first OED example.^[7]
• 1907 – a system for transmitting images.^[2][3][5]
• 1926 – Baird's demonstration.^[6]
• 1927 – television as a medium.^[2][7]
• 1941 – a television set.^[2]
• 1948 – TV.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. The system of transmitting images and sound by radio waves or cable and reproducing them on a screen.
2. A television set.
3. Television broadcasting as a medium or industry; programmes collectively.

Word family

• televisionally
• cablevision
• pretelevision
• televangelist
• TV
• cable television
• closed-circuit television

Related words

• televise
• televisual
• telephone
• telegraph
• vision
• video

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press