telescope

American  

[tel-uh-skohp] / ˈtɛl əˌskoʊp /

noun

• telescopes
  plural

1. an optical instrument for making distant objects appear larger and therefore nearer. One of the two principal forms refracting telescope, or refractor consists essentially of an objective lens set into one end of a tube and an adjustable eyepiece or combination of lenses set into the other end of a tube that slides into the first and through which the enlarged object is viewed directly; the other form reflecting telescope, or reflector has a concave mirror that gathers light from the object and focuses it into an adjustable eyepiece or combination of lenses through which the reflection of the object is enlarged and viewed.

2. Astronomy. Telescope, the constellation Telescopium.

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adjective

1. consisting of parts that fit and slide one within another.

verb (used with object)

• telescopes,
  present (3rd person singular)
• telescoped,
  past participle,  past
• telescoping
  present participle

1. to force together, one into another, or force into something else, in the manner of the sliding tubes of a jointed telescope.

2. to shorten or condense; compress.

   to telescope the events of five hundred years into one history lecture.

verb (used without object)

• telescopes,
  present (3rd person singular)
• telescoped,
  past participle,  past
• telescoping
  present participle

1. to slide together, or into something else, in the manner of the tubes of a jointed telescope.

2. to be driven one into another, as railroad cars in a collision.

3. to be or become shortened or condensed.

telescope British  

/ ˈtɛlɪˌskəʊp /

noun

1. an optical instrument for making distant objects appear larger and brighter by use of a combination of lenses (refracting telescope) or lenses and curved mirrors (reflecting telescope) See also terrestrial telescope astronomical telescope Cassegrain telescope Galilean telescope Newtonian telescope

2. any instrument, such as a radio telescope, for collecting, focusing, and detecting electromagnetic radiation from space

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verb

1. to crush together or be crushed together, as in a collision

   the front of the car was telescoped by the impact

2. to fit together like a set of cylinders that slide into one another, thus allowing extension and shortening

3. to make or become smaller or shorter

   the novel was telescoped into a short play

telescope Scientific  

/ tĕl′ĭ-skōp′ /

1. An arrangement of lenses, mirrors, or both that collects visible light, allowing direct observation or photographic recording of distant objects.

2. ◆ A refracting telescope uses lenses to focus light to produce a magnified image. Compound lenses are used to avoid distortions such as spherical and chromatic aberrations.

3. ◆ A reflecting telescope uses mirrors to view celestial objects at high levels of magnification. Most large optical telescopes are reflecting telescopes because very large mirrors, which are necessary to maximize the amount of light received by the telescope, are easier to build than very large lenses.

4. Any of various devices, such as a radio telescope, used to detect and observe distant objects by collecting radiation other than visible light.

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telescope Cultural  

1. A device used by astronomers to magnify images or collect more light from distant objects by gathering and concentrating radiation. The most familiar kind of telescope is the optical telescope, which collects radiation in the form of visible light. It may work by reflection, with a bowl-shaped mirror at its base, or by refraction, with a system of lens es. Other kinds of telescopes collect other kinds of radiation; there are radio telescopes (which collect radio waves), x-ray telescopes, and infrared telescopes. Radio and optical telescopes may be situated on the Earth, since the Earth's atmosphere allows light and radio waves through but absorbs radiation from several other regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. X-ray telescopes are placed in space.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• nontelescoping
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• telescopes
  plural

Participles

• telescoping
  present
• telescoped
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• telescope
  simple
• telescopes
  simple
• have telescoped
  perfect
• has telescoped
  perfect
• am telescoping
  progressive
• are telescoping
  progressive
• is telescoping
  progressive
• have been telescoping
  perfect progressive
• has been telescoping
  perfect progressive

Past

• telescoped
  simple
• had telescoped
  perfect
• was telescoping
  progressive
• were telescoping
  progressive
• had been telescoping
  perfect progressive

Future

• will telescope
  simple
• will have telescoped
  perfect
• will be telescoping
  progressive
• will have been telescoping
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of telescope

First recorded in 1610–20; tele- ¹ + -scope; replacing telescopium (from New Latin ) and telescopio (from Italian ); see -ium

Explanation

A telescope is an instrument that is used to view distant objects. If you want to look at the planets, you can use a telescope. The higher the magnification on the telescope, the better your view will be. Galileo is often credited with the invention of the telescope, but this is incorrect. Although he didn't invent it, he did improve it — a lot. He didn't name the telescope either; Greek mathematician Giovanni Demisiani did, in 1611. Telescope is from the Greek roots tele."far," and skopos, "seeing;" so it literally describes what the instrument does. As a verb, telescope means "to become smaller through one part sliding into another," the way a portable collapsing telescope does.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

telescope telescopes telescoped telescoping

Roman is NASA's newest space telescope and is designed to give astronomers a much broader view of the cosmos.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 24, 2026

"It's exciting that we discovered a thin stellar stream around a galaxy other than our own with already-existing Hubble Space Telescope data and confirmed it with ground-based telescope data," Starkenburg said.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 24, 2026

The Swift space telescope, which studies the most powerful explosions in the universe, will now likely plunge back to earth and disintegrate along the way later this year.

From Barron's ● Aug. 19, 2026

Aston's parents said he started showing an interest in the night sky from the age of two, this continued until he was given his first telescope aged six.

From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2026

The new science knew no boundaries of language or nationality, at least not within western Europe, within the world of the printing press, gunpowder weaponry, the telescope and the pendulum clock.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

At extreme distances, some surrounding structures become too faint for current telescopes to detect, leaving only the bright central source visible.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 17, 2026

She described a Concord hotel as serving “Walden water, aesthetic tea” and “Orphic acorns by the peck,” and offering telescopes for “the gifted eyes which desire to watch the songs of the oversoul.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026

At Beetle Bank Farm in York, the York Astronomical Society had telescopes set up, while families made pinhole cameras and donned their solar glasses.

From BBC ● Aug. 12, 2026

Some had waited all afternoon in sweltering heat beneath the scant shade of umbrellas, while others, the best prepared, had set up their telescopes.

From Barron's ● Aug. 12, 2026

She used telescopes to study near-Earth asteroids—those close enough to the edge of the asteroid belt that they could escape and come toward Earth!

From "Sir Fig Newton and the Science of Persistence" by Sonja Thomas

But this time around, in Burkina Faso, the timetable has telescoped.

From BBC ● Jan. 26, 2022

Her authenticity steadies the heartbeat of a film whose cuteness can sometimes grate, and whose telescoped view offers little sense of life beyond Buddy’s block.

From New York Times ● Nov. 11, 2021

There were two wheels at one end and a handle that telescoped out from the base at the other.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 18, 2018

At the Sirius Town Hall, the old “Mike and the Mad Dog” jingle plays, and fans in throwback Mets jerseys gather, and time has been telescoped.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 11, 2017

The entire fifty-foot pedestal telescoped downward into a spiral staircase.

From "Blood of Olympus" by Rick Riordan

For the encore, they cleared the perimeter of the stadium floor and drove around on giant, telescoping platforms, trailed by inflatable characters, like they were in a Macy's Day parade.

From BBC ● Sep. 25, 2025

Then we step forward — you can think of telescoping in on finer and finer timescales — we get from the billion year timescale to the hundreds of millions year timescale.

From Salon ● Sep. 29, 2023

Nevertheless, the telescoping cardboard applicator tampon is intimately familiar to almost anyone who’s had a period in the last century.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 3, 2023

This trait formed what Ella and I came to call a telescoping process, with parts stretching back across time, marking the discontinuity between past and present, and then collapsing it.

From Scientific American ● Jun. 14, 2023

Sohrab threw his arm over my shoulder and smiled into his mom’s telescoping lens.

From "Darius the Great Is Not Okay" by Adib Khorram

Related Words

• abbreviate
• constrict
• cram
• restrict
• shorten
• shrink
• squeeze
• wrap