a. [In earlier use, f. Gr. τῆλε (TELE-) + φωνή voice + -IC: in later use, f. TELEPHONE sb. + -IC.] Transmitting, or relating to the transmission of, sound to a distance. † a. Applied to a system of signalling by musical sounds: cf. TELEPHONY 1. Obs. b. Of, pertaining to, of the nature of, or conveyed by a telephone.
1834. Wilson, New Dict. Mus., 259. Telephonic Sounds, a musical language invented by M. Sudré … for the purposes of conversation,… the communication of military or naval orders [etc.] to any distance.
1835. Musical Library, Aug., Suppl., 78. This Telephonic system is one of the most ingenious contrivances we ever witnessed.
1840. Wheatstone, Lett., in Cooke, Electr. Telegraph (1857), I. 114. The most efficient … means of establishing a telegraphic (or rather a telephonic) communication between two remote points.
1877. Daily News, 30 Nov., 5/1. We do not exactly anticipate that telephonic offices will have to be superadded by the Post Office to its existing arrangements.
1878. G. B. Prescott, Sp. Telephone (1879), 17. In the summer of 1876 Professor A. G. Bell … exhibited a telephonic apparatus. Ibid., 39. Mr. Edison has recently invented a telephonic repeater, which is designed to be used … for increasing the distance over which [the telephone] may be made available.
1892. Montreal Weekly Gaz., 21 July, 8/7. The Public may now obtain telephonic communication over its long distance metallic circuit lines.
fig. 1884. J. Tait, Mind in Matter (1892), 99. Mind segregates itself … from the matter … on whose telephonic powers it depends for intercourse with the world.
Hence Telephonically adv., in the manner of or by means of a telephone.
1879. S. P. Thompson, in Nature, XXI. 180. Sounds transmitted telephonically.
1882. Pall Mall G., May 4. It is connected telephonically with the hotel at Dalmally.
