phonogram

American  

[foh-nuh-gram] / ˈfoʊ nəˌgræm /

noun

1. Linguistics. a symbol that represents a speech sound, syllable, or other sequence of speech sounds without reference to meaning, such as a letter in the Latin alphabet.

---

phonogram British  

/ ˈfəʊnəˌɡræm /

noun

1. any written symbol standing for a sound, syllable, morpheme, or word

2. a sequence of written symbols having the same sound in a variety of different words, for example, ough in bought, ought, and brought

---

Other Word Forms

• phonogramic adjective
• phonogramically adverb
• phonogrammic adjective
• phonogrammically adverb

Etymology

Origin of phonogram

First recorded in 1855–60; phono- + -gram ¹

Example Sentences

The musical accompaniment is provided by a recorded phonogram synthesizer.

From Seattle Times • Sep. 14, 2021

Some ten years after the late Thomas Alva Edison first recorded the human voice* on tinfoil in 1877, he sent the foregoing jingly "phonogram," on a wax cylinder, to Colonel George E. Gouraud in London.

From Time Magazine Archive

The telephone may yet be adapted to work in conjunction with it, so that a phonogram can be telephoned, or a telephone message recorded in the phonograph.

From Heroes of the Telegraph by Munro, John

I expect that an agreement may be made with the post-office authorities enabling phonogram boxes to be sent at the same rate as a letter.

From Buchanan's Journal of Man, December 1887 Volume 1, Number 11 by Buchanan, Joseph R. (Joseph Rodes)

Like Ampere, too, he was noted for a memory which retained many of the facts thus impressed upon it, as the sounds are printed on a phonogram.

From Heroes of the Telegraph by Munro, John