Word.ws English Dictionary

telephonitis

telephonitis noun: a tendency to use the telephone excessively.

Noun

telephonitis (uncountable)

  1. (humorous) A tendency to use the telephone excessively.
    • Ever since Saturday the A. J. Favaloro family has been suffering from an acute case of "telephonitis." The telephone began ringing at 5 a.m. Saturday and has hardly stopped since.1950, United States. Congress. House. Banking and Currency Committee, Extension of Rent Control, 1950: Hearings... (page 104); quoted from the Times-Picayune, May 4, 1950
    • AT&T may have found the solution to that teen-age disease dreaded by parents across the country — telephonitis.1986, Network World, volume 3, number 18, page 11

Origin of telephonitis

From telephone + -itis, as though it were a medical condition.

Questions about telephonitis

What does telephonitis mean?
Telephonitis means a tendency to use the telephone excessively.
What part of speech is telephonitis?
Telephonitis is a noun.

Words near telephonitis in the dictionary

  1. telephonies
  2. telephoning
  3. telephonings
  4. telephonist
  5. telephonists
  6. telephonitis
  7. telephonograph
  8. telephonographic
  9. telephonographs
  10. telephonology
  11. telephonometric

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: telephonitis (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: “telephonitis.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/telephonitis. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.