Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Telegraph
/ˈtɛlɪɡræf/noun
A system for sending messages over distance by coded signal.
The Greek roots
τῆλε
tēle
far off
γράφειν
gráphein
to write
Literally: “far writing”
The story of the word
Claude Chappe strung a chain of hilltop towers with pivoting wooden arms across revolutionary France. His own name for it was tachygraphe, fast writer; a colleague talked him into télégraphe, far writer, in 1793. The word was some forty years old before electricity had anything to do with it, so Morse's wires inherited a vocabulary invented for semaphore.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → French → English
- First recorded
- 1790s
Same family
telephonetelescopephotographtelemetry
In a sentence
News of the surrender reached London by telegraph before the ships were home.