telegraph
n. countablen. an old system for sending messages over long distances using wires and electric signals. Before phones and the internet, people used this to send short, urgent notes called telegrams.
n. a telecommunications system for the long-distance transmission of textual messages using coded signals, typically via electrical wires or radio. Historically significant as the first technology to decouple communication speed from physical transportation.
The news arrived quickly by telegraph.
During the nineteenth century, the telegraph allowed businesses to communicate across continents in minutes rather than weeks.
The installation of the transatlantic telegraph cable revolutionized global diplomacy by enabling near-instantaneous consultation between governments separated by vast oceanic distances.
Borrowed from French télégraphe, equivalent to tele- (“far, distant”) + graph (“writing”), suggested as a new name for Claude Chappe's overland semaphore network by André François Miot de Mélito in place of Chappe's original tachygraphe (“tachygraph, fast writer”).
Often used with the definite article ('the telegraph') when referring to the technology or the system as a whole.
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bush telegraph
A system used by undeveloped societies in remote regions for communication over long distances, such as drum sounds, word-of-mouth relay, or smoke signals.
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jungle telegraph
A system used by primitive cultures in remote tropical regions for communication over long distances, such as drum sounds or a relay of runners.
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mukluk telegraph
The spread of information and gossip by word of mouth in rural Alaska.