Adjacent Words

phonograph definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: machine in which rotating records cause a stylus to vibrate and the vibrations are amplified acoustically or electronically [syn: record player, phonograph]

Merriam Webster's

noun Date: 1877 an instrument for reproducing sounds by means of the vibration of a stylus or needle following a spiral groove on a revolving disc or cylinder

Britannica Concise

Instrument for reproducing sounds. A phonograph record stores a copy of sound waves as a series of undulations in a wavy groove inscribed on its rotating surface by the recording stylus. When the record is played back, another stylus (needle) responds to the undulations, and its motions are then reconverted into sound. Its invention is generally credited to T. Edison (1877). Stereophonic systems, with two separate channels of information in a single groove, became a commercial reality in 1958. All modern phonograph systems had certain components in common: a turntable that rotated the record; a stylus that tracked a groove in the record; a pickup that converted the mechanical movements of the stylus into electrical impulses; an amplifier that intensified these electrical impulses; and a loudspeaker that converted the amplified signals back into sound. Phonographs and records were the chief means of reproducing recorded sound at home until the 1980s, when they were largely replaced by recorded cassettes (see tape recorder) and compact discs.

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. 1 Brit. an early form of gramophone using cylinders and able to record as well as reproduce sound. 2 US a gramophone.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Phonograph Pho"no*graph, n. [Phono- + -graph.] 1. A character or symbol used to represent a sound, esp. one used in phonography. 2. (Physics) An instrument for the mechanical registration and reproduction of audible sounds, as articulate speech, etc. It consists of a rotating cylinder or disk covered with some material easily indented, as tinfoil, wax, paraffin, etc., above which is a thin plate carrying a stylus. As the plate vibrates under the influence of a sound, the stylus makes minute indentations or undulations in the soft material, and these, when the cylinder or disk is again turned, set the plate in vibration, and reproduce the sound.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(phonographs) A phonograph is a record player. (AM; also BRIT OLD-FASHIONED) N-COUNT

Moby Thesaurus

Gramophone, PA, PA system, Victrola, audio sound system, audiophile, binaural system, bitch box, bullhorn, cartridge, ceramic pickup, changer, crystal pickup, derived four-channel system, discrete four-channel system, four-channel stereo system, hi-fi, hi-fi fan, high-fidelity, intercom, intercommunication system, jukebox, magnetic pickup, monaural system, mono, needle, nickelodeon, photoelectric pickup, pickup, public-address system, quadraphonic sound system, radio-phonograph combination, record changer, record player, sound reproduction system, sound truck, squawk box, stereo, stylus, system, tape deck, tape recorder, tone arm, transcription turntable, turntable