noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A public telephone that requires prepayment to operate, generally via the insertion of coins or a credit card.

   "I only had ten cents in my pocket, so I couldn't use the payphone to call a cab."

Synonyms

All synonyms

tickey boxtickey box

Example

More examples

"Can you tell me where's the nearest payphone?"

Etymology

From pay + phone.

Related phrases

credit cardpublic telephonetelephone booth

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.