telegraph

Etymology

From French télégraphe, equivalent to tele- (“far, distant”) + graph (“writing”), suggested as a new name for Claude Chappe's overland semaphore network by André François Miot de Mélito in place of Chappe's original tachygraphe (“tachygraph, fast writer”).

noun

1. (uncommon) Synonym of telegraphy, any process for transmitting arbitrarily long messages over a long distance using a symbolic code.
   This strict sense of telegraph developed from French usage for Napoleon's overland semaphore network but rather arbitrarily excludes similar Chinese and other signalling networks.
2. (chiefly historical) The electrical device gradually developed in the early 19th century to transmit messages using Morse code; the entire system used to transmit its messages including overhead lines and transoceanic cables.
   The first message transmitted by telegraph in the United States was WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT.
   The middle-class families celebrated by Kipling, the prolific lowbrow families whose sons officered the army and navy and swarmed over all the waste places of the earth from the Yukon to the Irrawaddy, were dwindling before 1914. The thing that had killed them was the telegraph. In a narrowing world, more and more governed from Whitehall, there was every year less room for individual initiative... By 1920 nearly every inch of the colonial empire was in the grip of Whitehall. Well-meaning, over-civilized men, in dark suits and black felt hats, with neatly rolled umbrellas crooked over the left forearm, were imposing their constipated view of life on Malaya and Nigeria, Mombasa and Mandalay. 1941, George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius/Part I
3. (video games) A visible or audible cue that indicates to an opponent the action that a character is about to take.

verb

1. To use a telegraph.
2. (figurative) To clearly communicate to another nonverbally, whether by gesture, a change in attitude, or any other sign, especially unintentionally.
   Her frown telegraphed her displeasure.
   He took a jab and telegraphed his punch so loudly that I was able to land a solid right hand to his stomach. 2007, James A. Rozhon, The Man in the Maze
   For weeks, Ukrainian officials had telegraphed plans for a planned counterattack in the southern Kherson region, but instead the main focus of this week’s counterattack has been Kharkiv in the north-east, taking everyone, including apparently the Russians, by surprise. 2022-09-09, Isobel Koshiw, Shaun Walker, “Russia sends reinforcements to Kharkiv to repel Ukraine counterattack”, in The Guardian
   Sergey Radchenko, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, said China appeared to telegraph “a reproach to the Russians, that they’re not acting like a great power, that they are creating instability.” 2022-09-15, Anton Troianovski, Keith Bradsher, Austin Ramzy, “Chinese Support for Putin’s War Looks More Shaky After Summit”, in The New York Times, →ISSN