television
verbEtymology From tele- + vision; first attested in 1900, probably influenced by French télévision from Constantin Perskyi's 1900 paper that was unpublished but presented at a Paris conference.
television
noun/ˈtɛlɪˌvɪʒən/ · /ˈtɛləˌvɪʒən/
Etymology From tele- + vision; first attested in 1900, probably influenced by French télévision from Constantin Perskyi's 1900 paper that was unpublished but presented at a Paris conference.
1
Broadcasting, Media An electronic communication medium that allows the transmission of real-time visual images, and often sound.
- She watched television for over five hours last night.
- Indeed, after laying into Volodymyr Zelensky, the embattled president of an embattled Ukraine, in the Oval Office last year, Mr. Trump noted with satisfaction that “this is going to be great television.”2026 March 16, Peter Baker, “In Choosing ‘Epic Fury,’ Trump Names a War and Defines His Presidency”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC:
2
An electronic home entertainment device equipped with a screen and a speaker for receiving television signals and displaying them in audio-visual form.
- I have an old television in the study.
3
Collectively, the programs broadcast via the medium of television.
- fifty-seven channels and nothing on television
4
Dated Vision at a distance.
- Half an hour with the manager of Faith Brothers had had the effect of studding the sergeant's habitual simplicity of words and phrases with amazing jewels of technicality. He talked gladly of "lines" and "repeats" and similar profundities, so that Grant had, through his bulk, in a queer television a vivid picture of the manager himself.1929, Josephine Tey, The Man in the Queue:
- […] the magic mirror […] which furnished him television of his family and country1943, Elizabeth Hazelton Haight, Essays on the Greek Romances, Longmans, Green and Co., page 165:
- Synonyms
- boob tube, cultural barbiturate, electric tit, electronic babysitter, glass teat, goggle box, idiot box, idiot's lantern, magic box, shit box, television set, telly, the box, the tube, TV, zombie box
- Derived terms
66 terms
ambush television, analog television, antitelevision, appointment television, black-and-white television, breakfast television, cable television, cablevision, cellevision, closed-circuit television, color television, colour television, digital television, face for television, guerrilla television, high-definition television, jiggle television, linear television, made-for-television, network television, nontelevision, on television, pay television, pretelevision, public access television, public television, reality television, satellite television, scramblevision, slow television, smellevision, spankavision, standard-definition television, Talmudvision, teleplay, televangelical, televangelism, televangelist, televangelize, televidiot, television black, television channel, televisionese, televisionish, television journalism, televisionless, televisionlike, television match official, television movie, television network, television personality, television program, television programme, television receive-only, television receiver, television series, television show, television star, television station, television stone, television studies, television tube, television white, trash television, TV, web television- Related terms
- televise, televize, televisional, televisionally, televisionary, televisual