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A telephone is a system used to send speech or data over distances using a device called a telephone that functions as the transmitter and receiver. (noun)

An example of a telephone is a network or system that transmits electrical signals so you can call someone in Japan from your home in New york.
An example of a telephone is what you use to take advantage of a system of lines through which electrical signals are transferred.

To telephone is to call someone or make a phone call. (verb)

An example of telephone is when you use a cell phone to call your friend and say hi.

See telephone in Webster's New World College Dictionary

noun

☆ a system for transmitting speech or computerized information over distances, usually by converting sounds into electric impulses that are sent through a network of wires and cables: some systems transmit by means of radio waves
any device having a transmitter, receiver, and dialing mechanism, used in a telephone system

intransitive verb telephoned, telephoning

to talk over a telephone; convey a message by telephone
to try to make a connection by dialing a telephone number

transitive verb

to convey (a message) by telephone
to speak to or reach (a person) by telephone; call

Related Forms:

telephoner noun
telephonic adjective
telephonically adverb

See telephone in American Heritage Dictionary 4

(tĕlˈə-fōnˌ)

noun

An instrument that converts voice and other sound signals into a form that can be transmitted to remote locations and that receives and reconverts waves into sound signals.

verb tel·e·phoned, tel·e·phon·ing, tel·e·phones

verb, transitive

To speak with (a person) by telephone.
To initiate or make a telephone connection with; place a call to.
To transmit (a message, for example) by telephone.

verb, intransitive

To engage in communication by telephone.

Related Forms:

telˈe·phonˌer noun

Word History: The everyday word telephone illustrates some important linguistic and etymological processes. First, the noun telephone is one of a class of technological and scientific words made up of combining forms derived from classical languages, in this case tele- and -phone. Tele- is from the Greek combining form tēle- or tēl-, a form of tēle, meaning “afar, far off,” while -phone is from Greek phōnē, “sound, voice.” Such words derived from classical languages can be put together in French or German, for example, as well as in English. Which language actually gave birth to them cannot always be determined. In this case French téléphone (about 1830) seems to have priority. The word was used for an acoustic apparatus, as it originally was in English (1844). Alexander Graham Bell appropriated the word for his invention in 1876, and in 1877 we have the first instance of the verb telephone meaning “to speak to by telephone.” The verb is an example of a linguistic process called functional shift. This occurs when a word develops a new part of speech: a noun is used as a verb (to date), a verb as a noun (a break), an adjective as a noun (the rich), a noun as an adjective (a stone wall), or even an adjective as a verb (to round). When we telephone a friend, we are changing the syntactic function of telephone, making it a verb rather than a noun.

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