Word.ws English Dictionary

telautograph

telautograph noun: an analogue precursor to the fax machine, transmitting electrical impulses recorded by potentiometers to servomechanisms attached to a pen at the receiving station, thus reproducing a drawing or signature made by the sender.

Noun

telautograph (plural telautographs)

  1. (historical) An analogue precursor to the fax machine, transmitting electrical impulses recorded by potentiometers to servomechanisms attached to a pen at the receiving station, thus reproducing a drawing or signature made by the sender.
    • On Tuesday, March 21, was made the first public test of the telautograph, a long distance writing machine, the invention of Professor Elisha Gray of Chicago, which practically solves the problem of autographic communication over miles of wire.1893 April 6, “The Telautograph”, in The Iron Age, volume 51

Forms of telautograph

pluraltelautographs

Origin of telautograph

From tele- + autograph.

Questions about telautograph

What does telautograph mean?
Telautograph means an analogue precursor to the fax machine, transmitting electrical impulses recorded by potentiometers to servomechanisms attached to a pen at the receiving station, thus reproducing a drawing or signature made by the sender.
What part of speech is telautograph?
Telautograph is a noun.
What is the plural of telautograph?
The plural of telautograph is telautographs.

Words near telautograph in the dictionary

  1. telary
  2. telas
  3. telatinib
  4. telautogram
  5. telautograms
  6. telautograph
  7. telautographic
  8. telautographically
  9. telautographs
  10. telautography
  11. telautomata

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: telautograph (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “telautograph.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/telautograph. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.