telegram
Americannoun
verb (used with or without object)
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of telegram
Explanation
A telegram is a message sent by a telegraph, which is also called a wire. Over time, there have been many means of communicating, such as messenger pigeon, telephone, text message, letter, and email. Another is the telegram, which is a message sent by a telegraph. People often said a telegram was sent "by wire" because the sender and receiver of telegrams were connected by a wire. The electric telegraph has been around since the late 1800's. In the Civil War, important information was sent by telegram, which was the speediest means of communication.
Vocabulary lists containing telegram
Write On!: Graph and Gram
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Far and Away: Tele
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The Red Umbrella
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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:
At the time, the Tana family was vacationing on a remote Yugoslav island when a telegram arrived: “The restaurant burned down. Call me, Pearl,” recalls Katerina Tana, one of Dan Tana’s daughters.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 14, 2026
The author sent a telegram to his mother back home in French-controlled Algeria: “I’ve never missed you so much.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 8, 2026
"The telegram boy said, 'I'm sorry to tell you, but this is bad news'," he says.
From BBC ● Aug. 11, 2025
A telegram from King George VI was read aloud:
From BBC ● Jun. 21, 2025
He and his colleague Charles Sumner Tainter went to work in Bell's Washington laboratory, using their own ideas and input from other scientists whom they had contacted by letter and telegram.
From "Ambushed!" by Gail Jarrow
Stefansson’s telegrams to the dead men’s families are perfunctory.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 10, 2025
Morecambe's collection includes telegrams from the late Prince Philip and letters from Margaret Thatcher and fellow comics Ronnie Barker and Tommy Cooper.
From BBC ● Nov. 18, 2024
At its center, a young, unnamed telegraph operator watches as the beautiful, married Lady Bradeen sends flurries of telegrams, hoping that no one will notice the messages to the dashing Captain Everard.
From Slate ● May 27, 2024
“I’ve gotten thousands of letters and telegrams from people supporting me.”
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 11, 2024
She’s long enough in the post office to know how long it takes to deliver six telegrams even by foot.
From "Angela's Ashes: A Memoir" by Frank McCourt
Toward the end of 1926, Herman Mankiewicz, the screenwriter who would co-father “Citizen Kane,” telegrammed his friend Ben Hecht, the newspaperman who was finding himself between gigs and behind on his rent.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 11, 2023
“I didn’t know what to do with myself. I telegrammed back saying there was no way I wanted to be connected to that show.”
From New York Times ● Mar. 9, 2023
Nesbit had a serious relationship with the author Donald Barthelme before she married Gilman, and one day, Barthelme telegrammed her from Europe.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 14, 2023
At one point, after the mega-success of the "Ringo" LP, no less than John Lennon famously telegrammed Starr, saying “Congratulations. How dare you? And please write me a hit song.”
From Salon ● Oct. 25, 2019
The day before, he had telegrammed President Kennedy and listed twenty different, racially motivated, unpunished actions taken by white men against black people in Birmingham.
From "While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age during the Civil Rights Movement" by Carolyn Maull McKinstry
In 1916, Charles Evans Hughes waited two weeks before telegramming his concession to Woodrow Wilson, who noted that the message was “a little moth-eaten when it got here but quite legible.”
From Slate ● Nov. 7, 2012
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.
