Television
noun, verb, slang ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 An electronic communication medium that allows the transmission of real-time visual images, and often sound. uncountable
"She watched the television for over five hours."
- 2 a telecommunication system that transmits images of objects (stationary or moving) between distant points wordnet
- 3 An electronic home entertainment device equipped with a screen and a speaker for receiving television signals and displaying them in audio-visual form. countable
"I have an old television in the study."
- 4 an electronic device that receives television signals and displays them on a screen wordnet
- 5 Collectively, the programs broadcast via the medium of television. uncountable
"fifty-seven channels and nothing on television"
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- 6 broadcasting visual images of stationary or moving objects wordnet
- 7 Vision at a distance. dated, uncountable
"Half an hour with the manager of Faith Brothers had had the effect of studding the sergeant's habitual simplicity of words and phrases with amazing jewels of technicality. He talked gladly of "lines" and "repeats" and similar profundities, so that Grant had, through his bulk, in a queer television a vivid picture of the manager himself."
- 1 To watch television. informal, neologism
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"The profane language used on network television makes many parents with young children not want to subscribe to cable."
Etymology
From tele- + vision; first attested in 1900, probably influenced by French télévision from Constantin Perskyi's 1900 paper that was unpublished but presented at a Paris conference.
Related phrases
More for "television"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.