pay phone

American  

noun

• pay phones
  plural

1. a public telephone requiring that the caller deposit coins or use a credit card to pay for a call.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• pay phones
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of pay phone

First recorded in 1935–40

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

pay phone

PENNAN, Scotland—William Arnold drove 900 miles from his home in Cornwall this summer to a windswept pay phone on the Isle of Lewis.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026

“We’ve never been so this is maybe our last chance,” Tom Beattie said, sitting on a bench with their border terrier Annie as his wife called her sister from the pay phone.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026

I went to a pay phone and called a Chrysler expert I knew about.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 5, 2025

I could drive down to a pay phone at the motel along the highway if an emergency arose — but emergencies are never so common as we imagine.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 4, 2025

After we got our bags, George made a quick call on a nearby pay phone, and then took us outside to his light green station wagon.

From "The Red Umbrella" by Christina Gonzalez

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