Telecopter
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A helicopter used by a television news channel to gather footage.
"The angle came from a helicopter—KTLA-TV’s “telecopter” was the first of its kind. The utility of the Korean War–vintage Bell 47G-5 with the camera affixed to its belly had so far been mostly prurient: shots of the swimming pool where Marlon Brando’s maid had drowned; of the well that swallowed a darling little girl; of movie stars’ mansions being devoured by brush fires in the Hollywood hills."
Example
More examples"The angle came from a helicopter—KTLA-TV’s “telecopter” was the first of its kind. The utility of the Korean War–vintage Bell 47G-5 with the camera affixed to its belly had so far been mostly prurient: shots of the swimming pool where Marlon Brando’s maid had drowned; of the well that swallowed a darling little girl; of movie stars’ mansions being devoured by brush fires in the Hollywood hills."
Etymology
Blend of tele- + helicopter.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.