How to spell telephone

Telephone is spelled T-E-L-E-P-H-O-N-E. It is tele plus phone: the F sound is PH, and an E joins tel to phone.

hear ittel·e·phone/'tɛlə,foʊn/nounRules and real life

What it means: Electronic equipment for transmitting sound over distances.

In a sentence: I used the telephone to call my friend.

Same family: telephony, microphone, headphone, smartphone. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: Telephone comes from two Greek roots: 'tele' meaning 'far' and 'phone' meaning 'sound' or 'voice', so it literally means 'far sound'. Early telephones were sometimes called 'talking telegraphs' when they were first introduced in the 19th century.

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