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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 (gcide)

Telephone \Tel"e*phone\, n. [Gr. ? far off ? sound.] (Physics)
An instrument for reproducing sounds, especially articulate
speech, at a distance.
[1913 Webster]

Note: The ordinary telephone consists essentially of a device
by which currents of electricity, produced by sounds
through the agency of certain mechanical devices and
exactly corresponding in duration and intensity to the
vibrations of the air which attend them, are
transmitted to a distant station, and there, acting on
suitable mechanism, reproduce similar sounds by
repeating the vibrations. The necessary variations in
the electrical currents are usually produced by means
of a microphone attached to a thin diaphragm upon which
the voice acts, and are intensified by means of an
induction coil. In the magnetic telephone, or
magneto-telephone, the diaphragm is of soft iron placed
close to the pole of a magnet upon which is wound a
coil of fine wire, and its vibrations produce
corresponding vibrable currents in the wire by
induction. The mechanical, or string, telephone is a
device in which the voice or sound causes vibrations in
a thin diaphragm, which are directly transmitted along
a wire or string connecting it to a similar diaphragm
at the remote station, thus reproducing the sound. It
does not employ electricity.
[1913 Webster]


Telephone \Tel"e*phone\, v. t.
To convey or announce by telephone.
[1913 Webster]