Telegraphic

adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Of, or relating to the telegraph.

    "It turned out to be no more than the weekly Reuter’s telegram sent as an ordinary letter from the nearest telegraphic office fifty miles away."

  2. 2
    Brief or concise, especially resembling a telegram with clipped syntax.

    "Her conversation, I soon found, was couched in the telegraphic style. “Weeds grow like house afire. Can’t keep even with ’em. Shall press you in. Better be careful.”"

Adjective
  1. 1
    having the style of a telegram with many short words left out wordnet
  2. 2
    of or relating to or transmitted by telegraph wordnet

Example

More examples

"Not long ago Mr. Marconi invented a telegraphic instrument based upon his discovery that the magnetic hysteresis of iron can be annulled by electric oscillations."

Etymology

From telegraph + -ic.

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