Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Gramophone |
GramophoneNoun1. An antique record player; the sound of the vibrating needle is amplified acoustically. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "gramophone" was first used: 1887. (references) |
Etymology: Gramophone \Gram"o*phone\, noun. [Greek expression thing drawn or written (fr. write) -phone, as in telephone.]. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Dream Interpretation | To dream of hearing the gramophone, foretells the advent of some new and pleasing comrade who will lend himself willingly to advance your enjoyment. If it is broken, some fateful occurrence will thwart and defeat delights that you hold in anticipation. Source: Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted .... |
Electrical Engineering | An electroacoustic device including a record player, an amplifying system and one or more built-in or separate loudspeakers. Source: European Union. (references) |
| British term for phonograph. Source: European Union. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The phonograph, or gramophone, was the most common devices for playing recorded sound from the 1870s through the 1980s. Usage of these terms is somewhat different in British English and American English; see usage note below. In more modern usage, this device is often called the turntable or record player. In the late 19th and early 20th century, the alternative term talking machine was sometimes used. The phonograph was the first device for recording and replaying sound.
The term phonograph means "writing sound", a term coined from Greek roots. Similar related terms gramophone and graphophone mean the same thing. Arguably, any device used to record sound or reproduce recorded sound could be called a type of "phonograph", but in common practice it is usually only used to refer to certain historic technologies of sound recording.
Edison cylinder phonograph from c. 1899History
Thomas Alva Edison announced his invention of the first phonograph, a device for recording and replaying sound, on November 21, 1877 and he demonstrated the device for the first time on November 29 (he patented it on February 19, 1878). Edison's early phonographs recorded on a cylinder using up-down (vertical) motion of the stylus. Edison's early patents show that he also considered that sound could also be recorded as a spiral on a disc, but Edison concentrated his efforts on cylinders, since the groove on the outside of a rotating cylinder provides a constant velocity to the stylus in the groove, which Edison considered more "scientifically correct". See also: phonograph cylinderEmile Berliner invented what he called the Gramophone, another device for recording and replaying sound, and patented it in 1888. It recorded on a disk using side-to-side (lateral) motion of the stylus.
British and American language usage differences
In British English "gramophone" came to refer to any sound reproducing machine using disc records, as disc records were popularized in the UK by the Gramophone Company. The term "phonograph" is usually restricted to devices playing cylinder recordsIn American English, "phonograph" was the most common generic term for any early sound reproducing machine. Berliner's Gramophone was considered a type of phonograph. "Gramophone" was a brand name, and as such in the same category as "Victrola," "Zon-o-phone," and "Graphonola" referring to specific brands of sound reproducing machines. The brand "Gramophone" was not used in the USA after 1901, and the word fell out of use there. In contemporary American usage "phonograph" most usually refers to disc record machines or turntables, the most common type of analogue recording from the 1910s on.
Discs verses cylinders on the marketplace
Disc recording is inherently neither better nor worse than cylinder recording in potential audio fidelity. However Berliner's disc technique had commercial advantages over the Edison cylinder system:After years of experimentation, in 1895 Berliner decided he had perfected his "gramophone" system to begin commercial production of his disc records and "gramophones" or "talking-machines" to play them on. These were the first analogue disc records to be offered to the public. From mid the 1890s through the 1910s both phonograph cylinder and disc recordings and machines to play them on were widely mass marketed and sold. The disc system gradually became more popular due to its cheaper price and better marketing by disc record companies.
- Since Edison only patented recording sound vertically in a groove, Berliner did not need to pay royalties when using a lateral groove.
- The disc was much easier to mass produce by molding and stamping, and easier to store.
The dominance of the disc phonograph
Berliner's lateral disc record was the ancestor of the 78rpm, 45rpm, Long Play, and all other analogue disc records popular for use in sound recording through the 20th century. For a more detailed discussion, see analogue disc recordThe "phonograph", or "gramophone", or "turntable" remained a common element of home audio systems well after the introduction of other media such as audio tape and even the early years of the compact disc. They were not uncommon in home audio systems into the early 1990s.
The phonograph in the 21st century
Phonographs or disc record turntables continue to be manufactured and sold into the 21st century, although in much smaller numbers.
Phonograph turntables at a radio station, 2003Technics were largely responsible for the reinvention of turntables in the late 1960's when they created first direct drive turntable, the SP-10.
One continuing use of the phonograph turntable is "Scratching" in hip hop or rap music.
See also:
- Audio signal processing
- Sound recording
- Sound reproduction
External links:
- Invention of the Phonograph
- The Phonograph vs. the Gramophone
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Phonograph."
Synonym: GramophoneSynonym: acoustic gramophone (n). (additional references) |
Crosswords: Gramophone |
| English words defined with "gramophone": Victrola. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "gramophone": video disk, videodisk. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Gramophone" is also a word in the following language with the English translation in parentheses. French (gramophone). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | He even took the gramophone on safari (Out of Africa; writing credit: Isak Dinesen; Kurt Luedtke) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Gramophone Singer (1938) Pimple's Wonderful Gramophone (1913) That Marvellous Gramophone (1909) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
References |
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Books |
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Periodicals |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit |  | Caption: Peter Bacigalupi's Edison Phonograph and Gramophone Agency; San Francisco, CA; 1898-1899; {29.200/23} (jpg). |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
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| "Gramophone" by João Estêvão A. De Freitas Commentary: "My gramophone." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| "Gramophone" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 95.85% of the time. "Gramophone" is used about 193 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 95.85% | 185 | 22,646 |
| Lexical Verb (infinitive) | 2.07% | 4 | 175,879 |
| Lexical Verb (base form) | 1.55% | 3 | 202,518 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.52% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 193 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "gramophone": acoustic gramophone ♦ gramophone needle ♦ gramophone record ♦ radio gramophone. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "gramophone": radio-gramophone. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
gramophone | 144 |
gramophone magazine | 10 |
gramophone old | 5 |
gramophone history | 5 |
gramophone virtual | 4 |
gramophone picture | 3 |
gramophone record | 3 |
digital gramophone needle virtual | 2 |
gramophone old picture | 2 |
american gramophone | 2 |
deutsche gramophone | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "gramophone"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | gramofon (talking machine), gramafon (phonograph, record player, turntable). (various references) | |
Arabic | الحاكى الفونغراف. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | грамофон (phonograph, record player). (various references) | |
Chinese | 留聲機 , 留声机 (Phonograph). (various references) | |
Czech | gramofon (phonograph, record, record player). (various references) | |
Danish | grammofon (record player, record-player), pladespiller med forstærker og højttaler (phonograph). (various references) | |
Dutch | grammofoon (phonograph, record-player). (various references) | |
Farsi | گرامافون (Phonograph), دستگاه حبس صدا. (various references) | |
Finnish | gramofoni (phonograph), levysoitin (record player). (various references) | |
French | gramophone. (various references) | |
German | grammophon (phonograph). (various references) | |
Greek | γραμμόφωνο,φωνόγραφος (phonograph), γραμμοφώνο, πικάπ (record player), φωνογράφος. (various references) | |
Hebrew | מקול (phonograph), פטיפון (phonograph, record player, turntable). (various references) | |
Hungarian | gramofon (phonograph), lemezjátszó (record player, stereo, turntable). (various references) | |
Indonesian | gramofone (phonograph). (various references) | |
Italian | grammofono (phonograph). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 蓄音器 , 蓄音機 . (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | ちくおんき. (various references) | |
Manx | gramafone. (various references) | |
Norwegian | grammofon (cylinder phonograph). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | amophonegray.(various references) | |
Portuguese | gramofone (cylinder phonograph, talking machine). (various references) | |
Romanian | gramofon, patefon. (various references) | |
Russian | граммофон (phonograph, talking machine), патефон (phonograph). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | gramofon (record player). (various references) | |
Spanish | gramófono (phonograph). (various references) | |
Swedish | grammofon (phonograph, recordplayer). (various references) | |
Turkish | gramofon (phonograph, record-player). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | грамофон (phonograph, talking machine), патефон. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Greek | 700 BCE-300 CE | phone. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "gramophone": gramophones. (additional references) | |
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"Gramophone" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Gramacho, Gramaphon, Gramaphone, Gramophon. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| Words rhyming with "gramophone" (pronounced 'Gram"o*phone'): Actinophone, Aerophone, Antiphone, Audiphone, Auxetophone, Biophotophone, homophone, megaphone, Metallophone, microphone, Osteophone, Photographone, Photophone, Polyphone, Pyrophone, Radiophone, Radiotelephone, saxophone, Spectrophone, Sphygmophone, Sulphone, Xylophone. (additional references) |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-e-g-h-m-n-o-o-p-r" | |
-1 letter: monograph, morphogen, nomograph, phonogram. | |
-2 letters: neomorph. | |
-3 letters: harpoon, hogmane, homager, hormone, manrope, marengo, menorah, moorage, moorhen, oregano. | |
-4 letters: enamor, engram, german, gherao, gonoph, gopher, gorhen, hamper, hanger, homage, hooper, manger, maroon, moaner, monger, mongoe, morgan, morgen, morpho, ohmage, onager, oompah, operon, orange, orgone, orphan, phenom, pogrom, preman, ragmen, rehang, romano. | |
-5 letters: agone, among, anger, apron. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-e-g-h-m-n-o-o-p-r" | |
+1 letter: gramophones, monographed. | |
+2 letters: nomographies. | |
+4 letters: metamorphosing. | |
+5 letters: pharmacognosies, semipornography. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Images: Digital Art | 9. Usage Frequency 10. Expressions 11. Expressions: Internet 12. Translations: Modern | 13. Translations: Ancient 14. Derivations 15. Rhymes 16. Anagrams | 17. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
