Art & MusicGreek → English
Telephoto
/ˌtɛlɪˈfoʊtoʊ/adjective
Describing a long-focus camera lens that magnifies distant subjects.
The Greek roots
τῆλε
tēle
far off
φῶς
phôs
light
Literally: “far light”
The story of the word
Clipped from telephotographic, itself assembled from two Greek pieces that never met in Greek. Thomas Dallmeyer patented the design in 1891, and the trick is optical rather than merely long: a telephoto lens is physically shorter than its focal length, because a negative rear group stretches the image. Photographers who say tele mean the magnification; engineers mean the compression of the barrel.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1890s
Same family
telescopetelegraphphotographphosphorus
In a sentence
He shot the whole ceremony on a telephoto from the back of the hall so nobody noticed him.