Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Telemetry
/təˈlɛmɪtri/noun
The automatic transmission of measurements from a remote instrument to a receiving station.
The Greek roots
τῆλε
têle
far off
μέτρον
métron
measure
Literally: “measuring at a distance”
The story of the word
The practice came before the electronics. Nineteenth-century engineers ran wires down from Alpine snow gauges to valley stations so a reading could be taken without the climb, and τῆλε plus μέτρον named the trick precisely. Spacecraft, racing cars and implanted pacemakers all send telemetry now, and the word has drifted from the act of measuring to the stream of numbers that arrives.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1900s
Same family
telephonetelescopetelegraphmetric
In a sentence
The team lost telemetry from the lander four minutes before touchdown.
Pit wall sees the telemetry before the driver has finished the corner.