Word.ws English Dictionary

white-telephone

white-telephone adjective: characteristic of the Italian genre of film called white telephone; suggesting consequence-free lives of privilege.

Adjective

white-telephone (comparative more white-telephone, superlative most white-telephone)

  1. (derogatory, often) Characteristic of the Italian genre of film called white telephone; suggesting consequence-free lives of privilege.
    • Astaire and Rogers were fortunate: they embodied the swing-music, white-telephone, streamlined era before the Second World War, when frivolousness wasn't decadent, and when adolescents dreamed that 'going out' was dressing up and becoming part of a beautiful world of top hats and silver lamé.1972, Pauline Kael, The New Yorker

Forms of white-telephone

comparativemore white-telephone
superlativemost white-telephone
alternative formwhite telephone

Origin of white-telephone

Adjective form of white telephone.

Questions about white-telephone

What does white-telephone mean?
White-telephone means characteristic of the Italian genre of film called white telephone; suggesting consequence-free lives of privilege.
What part of speech is white-telephone?
White-telephone is an adjective.

Words near white-telephone in the dictionary

  1. white-tailed ptarmigans
  2. white-tailed sea eagle
  3. white-tailed sea eagles
  4. white-tailed shrike
  5. white-tailed shrikes
  6. white-telephone
  7. white-throat
  8. white-throated dipper
  9. white-throated dippers
  10. white-throated hawk
  11. white-throated hawks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: white-telephone (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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