telegraph wire
1
4.8
- noun
- /ˈtɛlɪˌɡræf waɪər/
- Archaic
:
cable telegráfico
- All of a sudden Telegraph wires that were dormant sprung to life and would transmit signals all by themselves.
- cut telegraph wire
All of a sudden Telegraph wires that were dormant sprung to life and would transmit signals all by themselves.
- All of a sudden Telegraph wires that were dormant sprung to life and would transmit signals all by themselves.
Examples
-
In August 1857, the failure of an Ohio investment house—the kind of event that had formerly taken weeks to be widely known—was the subject of a news story flashed immediately over telegraph wires to Wall Street and other financial markets.
Academic text (2013) -
On the day the offices opened, President Calvin Coolidge actually pushed a button in the White House, sending pulses across hundreds of miles of telegraph wires to start the presses churning in Akron.
Blog text (7) -
The Wild West is disappearing under roads and telegraph wire.
Fiction book (2001) -
Camera pans along telegraph wires to a small telegraph office.
Fiction book (1994) -
I tracked you down because the news I have for you couldn't be entrusted to the mails or the telegraph wire.
-
"That was how Frederick Douglass described the moment when the words of Lincoln's Proclamation first came over the telegraph wires that day.
Blog text (31) -
Several private ventures followed, but the major change came in 1878 when some of the strongest newspapers banded together under the name New Zealand Press Association and succeeded in leasing a telegraph wire from the government.
Academic text (1999) -
Later on, Henry Adams wrote about being abruptly severed from the experience of his ancestors by the Boston and Albany Railroad, the first Cunard steamer, and the stringing of telegraph wires.
Academic text (1995) -
In 1846, New York and Boston were linked by telegraph wires to facilitate communication.
-
Telephone and telegraph wires are down all over the state, causing major disruptions.
Synonyms
282
2.4
A thick strong wire that carries electricity or signals
73
1.6
A wire that carries telephone calls between two places
13
1.8
A wire that carries voices so people can call each other
9
4.1
A cable that carries electricity or data between places
4
2.4
A thin metal line that carries phone calls
1
4.5
Wires that carry messages or phone calls over long distances
A thin metal line that carries electricity from one place to another
How Far
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'telegraph' (a system/device for sending coded messages) combined with 'wire' (a metal conductor) yields a wire used for telegraph signals. This noun–noun compound follows a standard, cross-linguistic composition pattern, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Telegraph wire comes from the 1800s, when people sent messages as electric 'signals' along long metal wires between towns. The literal image of a telegraph and its wire carrying those 'signals' explains why the phrase means the actual wire that carries messages.