telegram
Americannoun
-
telegrams
plural
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
Within hours of carrying the first telegram across the English Channel in 1850, the earliest “submarine telegraph”—27 miles of copper wire wrapped in a rubbery substance called gutta percha—was broken by a fishing trawler.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 4, 2026
“The Queen and Elton John sent me a telegram of congratulations - my mum and dad were interviewed all week - it was a big thing.”
From BBC ● Oct. 30, 2024
His family had to wait almost two weeks before a telegram arrived, addressed to his mother.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 8, 2024
When he sent her a telegram for their “Sixteenth Monthiversary,” he joked that each letter and punctuation mark was a code standing for “I love you!”
From "The Woman All Spies Fear" by Amy Butler Greenfield
Stefansson’s telegrams to the dead men’s families are perfunctory.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 10, 2025
Other lots included telegrams from the late Duke of Edinburgh and letters from Margaret Thatcher and fellow comics Ronnie Barker and Tommy Cooper.
From BBC ● Jan. 11, 2025
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
The Western Union office in San Francisco was overwhelmed with hundreds of congratulatory telegrams for the Howards, including those from Bing Crosby, A1 Jolson, and Fred Astaire.
From "Seabiscuit: An American Legend" by Laura Hillenbrand
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
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
“Hold your hand out you silly girl,” McCartney telegrammed one music critic, Penny Valentine, quoting the Beatles’ “Martha My Dear,” after she called his first solo album “a bitter disappointment.”
From New York Times ● Dec. 6, 2022
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
But my mother had telegrammed back, "No, it is Esther's writing. She thinks she will never write again."
From "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath
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.
