megaphone
Americannoun
-
megaphones
plural
verb (used with or without object)
noun
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Derived Forms
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Nouns
Etymology
Origin of megaphone
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How does megaphone compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
A megaphone is a cone-shaped amplifier you can use to make your voice louder. You can bring a megaphone to a football game, but leave it at home if you are headed to a dinner party. Megaphones are useful, portable devices for someone who's guiding a group of protesters, for a movie director who's working with a lot of actors on a large set, or for cheerleaders who want their voices to carry over the roar of a crowd of football fans. Thomas Edison invented the megaphone, and he probably named it too: it combines the Greek megas, "great," with phone, "voice."
Vocabulary lists containing megaphone
Ghost
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The Boys in the Boat
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The Color of My Words
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
A representative of tenants' organisation Sindicato de Inquilinas shouted at the police through a megaphone: "Think for 10 seconds about Maricarmen, who could be your own grandmother."
From BBC ● Sep. 23, 2026
“Good morning, Pasadena,” Betsy Hanger, an organizer with the group, boomed into a megaphone as she walked through an intersection.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 25, 2026
"Family members must stay in the waiting room," the employee shouted through a megaphone, reminding relatives that they were lucky to be alive.
From Barron's ● Jun. 25, 2026
As her fellow lawmakers cast the last votes to pass the map, Nixon yelled into a hot pink megaphone, accusing her fellow lawmakers of violating the state constitution.
From Salon ● Jun. 19, 2026
“Are you in distress?” he hollered threw a megaphone.
From "The (Mostly) True Story of Cleopatra's Needle" by Dan Gutman
After police officers had used megaphones to call on those gathered to desist from violence, they used water cannons and tear gas to temporarily disperse the crowd.
From Barron's ● Oct. 17, 2026
“It was megaphones from before we started until after we left. You couldn’t get through a single testimony—including from families in Gaza—without being disrupted by these chants.”
From Slate ● Oct. 15, 2026
The serious journalism Margaret aspires to do is splintering under our distrust of who controls the megaphones.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 10, 2026
On the other side of the barricades, one of the largest groups of anti-Xi demonstrators in recent American memory countered with megaphones, black-and-white protest banners and flags bearing snow lions, a symbol of Tibetan identity.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 27, 2026
Stories spread that his men were patrolling the streets in pickup trucks, shouting his orders from megaphones.
From "Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Changed the World" by Malala Yousafzai
Business groups, including agricultural operations, also megaphoned their displeasure.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 27, 2023
But it is the quality of the show itself, megaphoned by reviews and word of mouth, that made it into the semi-hit it is.
From New York Times ● May 9, 2018
Sometimes clashes arise with headphone-wearing runners who are blasting tunes at such a volume that they can’t hear the megaphoned voices of announcers or the directions offered by volunteers.
From The New Yorker ● Nov. 4, 2016
“Do you feel safer?” megaphoned Louise Hainline, the president of Neighbors for a Better Bike Lane, the group that organized the protest.
From New York Times ● Oct. 21, 2010
Piper megaphoned after him: “Maniac! Come back! We was just kidding! You don’t have to!”
From "Maniac Magee" by Jerry Spinelli
Writing in The Times, Mr. Crowther declared that “Mr. Preminger’s megaphoning and some expert photography have resulted in a most vivid blend of action and New York City backgrounds.”
From New York Times ● May 26, 2016
Inflammatory health scares are generally not the fault of a public health official trying to provide the facts but the media megaphoning said facts and using the official for hyped soundbites.
From Slate ● Apr. 20, 2016
"Health complaints were as rare as proverbial rocking horse droppings until the scare-mongering groups began megaphoning their apocalyptic, scary messages to rural residents," says study author Simon Chapman.
From Slate ● Mar. 20, 2013
Then back came the shadow again, and a voice was megaphoning, not from below or in the rear but from right overhead.
From Our Pilots in the Air by William Perry Brown
Our steamer-chair audience has often begged us to announce the composer and the name of each selection as we go along, and we usually appoint somebody to do this, megaphoning the titles through the window.
From Life's Minor Collisions by Frances Lester Warner
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
