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 telegram advised of the need for "careful and sometimes strict media management", and "initial proposals should contain the outline of a media strategy".
From BBC ● May 21, 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 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
“I am glad to find you, sir. I have a telegram here for you all the way from Washington. That’s District of Columbia, sir. Not state of.”
From "The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate" by Jacqueline Kelly
There, Susan met Giorgos Xenarios, a goldsmith and jewelry maker 27 years her senior who, after many love letters, telegrams, intercontinental trips and one very firm ultimatum, migrated to the U.S. in 1974.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 10, 2025
ProjectXplore began investigating in September 2024, researching records such as ships' logs, telegrams and charts.
From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2025
The White House was flooded with more than 300,000 letters and telegrams denouncing his life sentence.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 30, 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
There were telegrams from all around the world, from presidents and prime ministers, but I remember one in particular from a white Cape Town housewife that amused me greatly.
From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela
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
Hecht hailed from the quick-witted New York circles once frequented by Mankiewicz, who telegrammed his friend an oft-quoted invitation to Hollywood: “Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots.”
From New York Times ● Dec. 4, 2020
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.
