telegraph

[tel-i-graf, -grahf]

noun

1. an apparatus, system, or process for transmitting messages or signals to a distant place, especially by means of an electric device consisting essentially of a sending instrument and a distant receiving instrument connected by a conducting wire or other communications channel.

2. Nautical.,  an apparatus, usually mechanical, for transmitting and receiving orders between the bridge of a ship and the engine room or some other part of the engineering department.

3. a message sent by telegraph; a telegram.

verb (used with object)

1. to transmit or send (a message) by telegraph.

2. to send a message to (a person) by telegraph.

3. Informal.,  to divulge or indicate unwittingly (one's intention, next offensive move, etc.), as to an opponent or to an audience; broadcast.

   The fighter telegraphed his punch and his opponent was able to parry it. If you act nervous too early in the scene, you'll telegraph the character's guilt.

verb (used without object)

1. to send a message by telegraph.

telegraph

/ tɪˈlɛɡrəfɪst, -ˌɡrɑːf, ˈtɛlɪˌɡræf /

noun

1. 1. a device, system, or process by which information can be transmitted over a distance, esp using radio signals or coded electrical signals sent along a transmission line connected to a transmitting and a receiving instrument

   2. ( as modifier )

      telegraph pole

2. a message transmitted by such a device, system, or process; telegram

verb

1. to send a telegram to (a person or place); wire

2. (tr) to transmit or send by telegraph

3. informal,  (tr) boxing to prepare to deliver (a punch) so obviously that one's opponent has ample time to avoid it

4. (tr) to give advance notice of (anything), esp unintentionally

5. informal,  (tr) to cast (votes) illegally by impersonating registered voters

telegraph

1. A communications system in which a message in the form of short, rapid electric impulses is sent, either by wire or radio, to a receiving station. Morse code is often used to encode messages in a form that is easily transmitted through electric impulses.

Other Word Forms

• telegrapher noun
• pretelegraph adjective
• retelegraph verb
• untelegraphed adjective
• telegraphist noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of telegraph¹

< French télégraphe (1792) a kind of manual signaling device; tele- ¹, -graph

Example Sentences

One can’t say that the change was a bolt from the blue, because Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has telegraphed his intention to revisit the causes of autism for months.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

The famed Pony Express, which rushed the news of Abraham Lincoln’s election to California in November 1860, went out of business less than a year later, after the telegraph made coast-to-coast communications infinitely faster.

Read more on MarketWatch

As America moved to mechanized textile mills, telegraphs and urbanization, that created demand for factory workers, machinists and communications clerks.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

The senator had long telegraphed, even before it became Democrats’ rallying cry for the length of the shutdown, that health care subsidies were his red line.

Read more on Salon

Some companies telegraph in advance that layoffs are coming to lessen the shock, though that can fuel anxiety, too.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• anticipate 
• augur 
• calculate 
• conclude 
• determine 
• estimate 
• foresee 
• foretell 
• gauge 
• portend