A teleprompter is a screen that allows someone to read a script while they're performing or speaking. Politicians often use teleprompters when they're giving televised speeches, rather than speaking off the cuff. When you think of a teleprompter, you may imagine a U.S. president delivering the State of the Union address from the Oval Office, reading a prepared speech in front of TV cameras. Other people use teleprompters, too, including actors on live television shows, newscasters, social media influencers, and even singers who want to make sure they don't flub the lyrics of a song. Teleprompter was originally a brand name, coined in 1951 from television and prompter.
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Rachel Maddow is teaching her to use a TelePrompTer, so far with mixed results.
From New York Times ● Feb. 21, 2023
I think of the TV news as being very scripted—you’re reading from a TelePrompTer.
From Slate ● Jun. 22, 2021
There was no TelePrompTer in sight, just a notepad on a lectern edged by pink Post-it Notes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 10, 2020
Despite a TelePrompTer hiccup at the start of the show, host Jimmy Fallon didn’t fail to deliver in his opening sequence at the Golden Globes.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 8, 2017
I am not sure what speech is in the TelePrompTer tonight, but I hope we can talk about the State of the Union.
From State of the Union Address by Clinton, William Jefferson
The president addressed the cameras for about five minutes, fueled by tangible human emotion and reportedly without a Teleprompter, before taking a few questions from reporters.
From Salon ● Feb. 11, 2024
Carlson holds his own Teleprompter controller and wears a suit with a pocket square.
From New York Times ● Jun. 7, 2023
And when she spoke at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, he warned her about the dangers of relying on a Teleprompter.
From Washington Post ● May 1, 2022
All three peered at their lines from a Teleprompter as they delivered a lightning-quick bit, and Rudolph practiced opening an envelope: “And the Oscar goes to… Amy Poehler!”
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 24, 2019
Even as the words he’d written rolled onto the Teleprompter, Johnson’s closest aides didn’t know if he was going to read them.
From "Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War" by Steve Sheinkin
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
