[a. F. télégraphe (Chappe, 1792), f. Gr. τῆλε afar + -γραφ-ος that writes, writer: see TELE- and -GRAPH; so Ger. telegraph.
Miot de Mélito states in his Mémoires, I. 38, that Chappe the inventor proposed to call his invention a tachygraghe, but was told by Miot that the name was bad, and ought to be télégraphe, which he at once adopted. (See Littré.)]
1. An apparatus for transmitting messages to a distance, usually by signs of some kind. Devices for this purpose have been in use from ancient times, but the name was first applied to that invented by Chappe in France in 1792, consisting of an upright post with movable arms, the signals being made by various positions of the arms according to a pre-arranged code. Hence applied to various other devices subsequently used, operating by movable disks, shutters, etc., flashes of light, movements in a column of liquid, sounds of bells, horns, etc., or other means. (Now rare in this sense, such contrivances being usually called semaphores or signalling apparatus.)
[1794. Europ. Mag., Sept., 166/2. It was announced to them by the Telegraphe from Lisle.]
1794. Hist., in Ann. Reg., 394. The invention of the telegraph…. A number of posts are erected at convenient distances; and on each … is fixed a transverse beam with two moveable arms, the beam itself being also moveable. The different forms which the machine is capable of assuming is 16, and these represent the telegraphic alphabet.
1795. Times, 30 Dec., in Ashton, Old Times (1885), 127. A chain of Telegraphs is erected from Shuter’s Hill to Dover.
1798. Hull Advertiser, 14 April, 2/4. Orders were … transmitted by the telegraph and by express to Portsmouth.
1805. in A. Duncan, Nelson (1806), 297. Lord Nelson conveyed the following sentence by telegraph, to the fleet—‘England expects every man will do his duty.’
1813. J. W. Croker, in Cr. Papers (1884), I. ii. 53. The Plymouth telegraph announces another complete victory of Lord W. over Soult on the 30th.
18[?]. Moore, Fragm. Character, v. Scarcely a telegraph could wag Its wooden finger, but Ned knew it.
1823. Pasley (title), Description of the Universal Telegraph for Day and Night Signals.
1834–47. J. S. Macaulay, Field Fortif. (1851), 256. A soldier makes an excellent telegraph … varying the gestures to meet the various circumstances.
1863. W. Ladd, in Rep. British Assoc., 19. On an Acoustic Telegraph.
b. Applied retrospectively to ancient devices.
1794. Times, 20 Sept., in Ashton, Old Times (1885), 125. The invention of the Telegraphe is now traced back to 1655, and particularly mentioned in a little book … by the Marquis of Worcester…. He there gives it the name of Visual Correspondence, and calls it his own invention.
1808. J. Macdonald, Telegraphic Commun., 37. Julius Africanus minutely details a mode of spelling words by a Telegraph. It appears, that fires of various substances, were the means made use of.
1842. Penny Cycl., XXIV. 145/2. Bishop Wilkins,… after describing this telegraph of Polybius, mentions another which requires only three lights or torches.
c. fig.
1795. O’Keefe. Irish Mimick, I. i. Love is a monstrous telegraph.
1817. Coleridge, ‘Blessed are ye,’ 103. When strip of princely capitals are often but the Telegraphs of distant calamity.
2. In full, electric (or magnetic) telegraph: An apparatus consisting of a transmitting instrument (transmitter), a receiving instrument (receiver), and a line or wire of any length connecting these, along which an electric current from a battery or other source passes, the circuit being made and broken by working the transmitter, so as to produce movements, as of a needle or pointer, in the receiver, which indicate letters, etc., either according to a code of signs, or by pointing to characters upon a dial; in some forms the receiver works so as to print or trace the message upon a prepared paper.
Also, an apparatus for wireless telegraphy: see WIRELESS.
1797. Monthly Mag., Feb., 148. Dr. Don Franciso Salva had read, at the Royal Academy of Sciences, at Barcelona, a Memoir on the Application of Electricity to the Telegraph, and presented … an Electrical Telegraph of his own invention.
1823. Ronalds (title), Descriptions of an Electrical Telegraph.
1834. Brewster, in Encycl. Brit. (ed. 7), VIII. 582/1. Mr. F. Ronalds … erected at Hammersmith an electrical telegraph, on which the inflections of the wire composed one continuous length of more than eight miles. Ibid., 662/2. Some German and American authors have proposed to construct galvanic telegraphs by the decomposition of water.
1842. Penny Cycl., XXIV. 154/1. It is to the joint labours of Messrs. W. F. Cooke and Professor Wheatstone that electric telegraphs owe their practical application. Ibid., 155/1. The electromagnetic telegraph…. The longest continuous line yet completed is that from Paddington to West Drayton. Ibid. It is reported (July, 1842) that an electric telegraph is about to be laid down along the South Western Railway, from London to Gosport.
1845. Col. Hawker, Diary (1893), II. 264. I saw the magnetic telegraph at the railway station.
1854. G. B. Richardson, Univ. Code, v. 7420. Have you received any communication by electric telegraph?
1858. Longfellow, in Life (1891), II. 361. Presently the clerk says, ‘The Atlantic Telegraph is laid!’
1878. G. B. Prescott, Sp. Telephone (1879), 1. More than one hundred years ago Lesage established a telegraph in Geneva by the use of frictional electricity.
1881. W. M. Springer in N. Amer. Rev., CXXXII. 369. In … thirty years the telegraphs of the world have grown to nearly half a million miles of line, and more than a million miles of wire.
fig. 1864. Lowell, Fireside Trav., 123. The magnetic telegraph of human sympathy flashes swift news from brain to brain.
† 3. A message sent by telegraph; a telegram. Obs.
1850. D. Webster, Lett. (1902), 392. I received your Telegraph last eve.
1857. Lady Canning, Lett. fr. Calcutta, 12 May, in Hare, Two Noble Lives (1893), II. 161. A telegraph had come telling of a violent outbreak of the 3rd cavalry at Meerut.
a. 1861. Clough, Poems (1869), II. 423. He … found a telegraph that bade him come Straight to the country.
1862. Miss Yonge, Stokesley Secret, x. 149. Suppose a telegraph should come!
4. In Cricket, A board upon which the numbers of runs obtained and wickets taken are exhibited during a match in large figures so as to be visible at a distance; a scoring-board. Also a similar device used in other athletic sports (see telegraph-board, quot. 1868, in 8).
1859. All Year Round, No. 13. 305. There was a proper telegraph to show the ‘runs got’ and the ‘wickets down.’
5. slang. A scout or spy.
1825. C. M. Westmacott, Eng. Spy, I. 162. Dick’s a trump and no telegraph.
1888. ‘R. Boldrewood,’ Robbery under Arms, xxiii. Warrigal [was sent out] to meet one of our telegraphs … and to bring us any information he could pick up. Ibid. (1890), Miner’s Right, xviii. These ‘bush telegraphs,’ as the modern robber slang has dubbed them, are of all avocations and both sexes.
† 6. A fancy name for some kind of carriage. Obs.
1810. S. Green, Reformist, II. 130. The whimsical vehicle which conveys the man of high ton, be it either dog-cart, telegraph, or barouchette.
7. Used as individual name of a newspaper, a variety of plant, etc.
1794. Coleridge, Lett., I. 122. I will accept of the reporter’s place to the ‘Telegraph’ and live upon a guinea a week.
1882. Garden, 14 Jan., 31/1. A few seeds of Telegraph [cucumbers] may now be sown in small pots.
8. attrib. and Comb., as telegraph boy, cable (CABLE sb. 3), clerk, dial, house, instrument, line (LINE sb.2 1 c), message, office, service, wire; telegraph-block, Naut. a number of small brass sheaves in a long narrow shell, with which several flags may be hoisted at the same time: used in making signals; telegraph-board = sense 4; telegraph-carriage (see quot.); telegraph-clock, a clock connected with another in a different room or building by means of a telegraph-wire conveying an electric current, so that the movements of the one are controlled by those of the other, and thus both indicate the same time; telegraph-cock, ‘a compression-cock operated by a pivoted lever like the key of a telegraphic transmitter’ (Funk’s Stand. Dict.); telegraph form, a paper printed with spaces in which the words of a telegram are to be written for dispatch (FORM 12 b); telegraph-key, a small lever or other device in a telegraphic transmitter, worked by the hand, for making and breaking the circuit (KEY sb.1 12 a); telegraph-plant, an East Indian leguminous plant, Desmodium gyrans, remarkable for the spontaneous movements of its leaflets, suggesting signalling; also called moving plant; telegraph-pole, -post, one of a series of poles upon which a telegraph wire or wires are carried above the ground; telegraph-reel, a reel on which is wound the strip of paper on which the messages are traced in a recording telegraph; telegraph-register, a telegraphic receiver, or part of one, which gives a permanent record of the messages received.
1868. H. F. Wilkinson, Mod. Athletics, 17. *Telegraph Board…. Before each race or heat, the numbers of the starters … should be posted on the board.
1897. ‘Tivoli’ (H. W. Bleakley), Short Innings, iii. 48. The hundred appeared on the telegraph board. Still the batsmen hit.
1860. Illustr. Lond. News, 25 Feb., 187/1. The servant girl, and even the *telegraph boy stand staring.
1855. Lardner’s Museum Sci. & Art, III. IV. Index. *Telegraph-cables, durability of.
1877. Knight, Dict. Mech., 2507/1. The essential features of a submarine telegraph-cable are a wire or wires for conducting and a protecting compound. Ibid. *Telegraph-carriage, a vehicle provided with the apparatus necessary for opening temporary communication with a permanent line … used … where no line of telegraph is immediately at hand.
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, *Telegraph-clerk, a subordinate officer in a telegraph-office.
1879. Daily News, 1 Aug. (Ho. Comm.). Lord J. Manners … stated that … the name of telegraph clerks had been changed to that of telegraphists.
1877. Knight, Dict. Mech., *Telegraph-clock. Ibid. *Telegraph-dial.
1895. *Telegraph form [see FORM sb. 12 b].
1823. in Cobbett, Rur. Rides (1885), I. 268. For what reason this pretty name [Semaphore] is given to a sort of *Telegraph house … I must leave the reader to guess.
1877. Knight, Dict. Mech., *Telegraph-instrument.
1897. Flandrau, Harvard Episodes, 111. [It] sounded like the clicking of a telegraph instrument.
1877. Knight, Dict. Mech., *Telegraph-key.
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, *Telegraph-line.
1860. Trollope, Framley P., xxxii. A *telegraph message makes such a fuss in the country, frightening people’s wives.
1886. C. E. Pascoe, London of To-day, xxvi. (ed. 3), 242. Post-offices and railway stations opened for the receipt and dispatch of telegraph messages.
1858. J. B. Norton, Topics, 69. On the night of the 24th, the *telegraph-office was burnt down.
1884. Miller, Plant-n., *Telegraph-plant, Desmodium gyrans.
1869. Daily News, 20 Dec. She is now 83 years old, and erect as a *telegraph pole.
1884. J. Tait, Mind in Matter (1892), 71. As callous as a telegraph pole.
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, *Telegraph-post.
1877. Knight, Dict. Mech., *Telegraph-reel. Ibid. *Telegraph-register.
1817. Salisbury & Winchester Jrnl., 29 Sept. The church of Fromelles … was reduced to ashes by lightning…. An individual … in the belfry, on the *telegraph service, perished in the flames.
1875. Ure, Dict. Arts, etc., II. 242. *Telegraph wires are suspended to poles by insulators of earthenware, glass, or porcelain.
