Radiophony

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The transmission of spoken sound through radio waves rather than wires, as used in early broadcasting and communication
2. Communication of voice signals by means of radio transmission, sending speech across distances without physical cables
3. The sending and receiving of spoken messages over radio waves, a method of telephony carried out wirelessly

Etymology: Radiophony is a compound built from two pieces that were already common in early twentieth-century technical English: "radio-", from Latin "radius" meaning ray, and "-phony", from Greek "phōnē" meaning sound or voice. The pattern follows older coinages such as "telephony," which had long described transmission of speech over wires. Radiophony simply swapped the wire for radio waves, so the word names the sending of voices through the air rather than along a line. The formation is a textbook example of how engineers and scientists in the 1900s built new terms from classical parts. Nobody in antiquity used "radiophony," and its Greek and Latin elements were combined only once the technology they describe existed. Because the same two parts appear in "telephony" and "radiotelephony," the word belongs to a whole family of terms for speech at a distance.

Synonyms: radiotelephony