Telecaster

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A type of solid-body electric guitar known for its distinctive single-cutaway design, used primarily in popular music genres; a model first introduced by a major American guitar manufacturer in the early 1950s; also refers to an original version or any similar variant inspired by this design
2. An influential style of electric guitar featuring a flat top and single-cutaway body, originally produced by a prominent US manufacturer in the mid-20th century; recognized for its bright, sharp sound favored in country and rock music; signifies both a classic guitar design and its modern reproductions
3. A classic electric guitar design with a single-cutaway, bolt-on neck, and dual single-coil pickups, created by a notable American company in the 1950s; widely used across genres like rock, country, and blues; denotes the original guitar or any derivative fashioned after its form and tonal style

Etymology: The Telecaster is named after a broadcast term, not a musical one. "Telecast" meant a television broadcast, and the "-er" suffix turned it into a name for a product, the solid-body electric guitar that Leo Fender introduced in 1950 as the first mass-produced model of its kind. Fender's designers were naming a guitar for a modern, electronic age, and the television reference signalled that the instrument was as up to date as the new medium of the day. The word's ancestry is simple. "Tele-" comes from Greek "tēle", meaning "far off", and it appears in many twentieth-century coinages such as "television" and "telephone". "Cast" in "telecast" is the older verb meaning to send out or throw, which gave the broadcasting sense in the 1930s. Adding "-er" to a noun that names a thing to be sent out produced a word that could label a product rather than a programme.

Synonyms: electric guitar, solid-body guitar, fender telecaster, guitar