telephone booth
4
2.3
- noun
- /ˈtɛlɪˌfoʊn buθ/
- Archaic
:
cabina telefónica
- Did you ever try to pull anybody out of a telephone booth?
- a red telephone booth
- a public telephone booth
- the size of a telephone booth
It it went down the hill and and curved and at the bottom of the hill there was a telephone booth.
- It it went down the hill and and curved and at the bottom of the hill there was a telephone booth.
Examples
-
Johnnie is seated in a telephone booth at the back of the bar.
Fiction book (1990) -
I'll be waiting at the telephone booth at the corner.
-
I met him in a telephone booth.
-
Weird place for a telephone booth.
-
This is the telephone booth.
-
Every telephone booth in this park will ring.
-
And he went back to the telephone booth to look up the address.
Fiction book (1990) -
Ray is at a telephone booth up the street from Julie's apartment.
Fiction book (1998) -
Julia appears through the storm, running towards a telephone booth on the street corner.
Fiction book (2002) -
I saw him making a call from a telephone booth on the busy street.
Synonyms
42
1.5
A small enclosed space with a public phone for private calls
1
3.0
A small box on a street that holds a public phone
A small booth with a telephone that people use
A public booth with a phone for making calls
How Enclosed
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and transparently composed from 'telephone' (device for voice communication) + 'booth' (an enclosed stall), so a B1 learner who knows both words can infer a small enclosed structure housing a telephone. This noun+noun compounding pattern is common across languages and in English, making the MWE immediately comprehensible from its parts.
Etymology
Telephone booth comes from a simple picture: a small booth with a telephone inside where people stepped in for privacy to make a call. That's why it means 'a small enclosed structure in a public place where a public telephone is installed'.