Definition of Telegraph: A telegraph is a communication system that transmits messages over long distances using coded signals. In the era before digital communication, it was one of the first devices to send messages using electrical signals along a wire. The most common form was the electric telegraph, which converted messages into coded electrical impulses that were sent to another location and translated back into language.
Etymology and Origin: The term ‘telegraph’ originates from the Greek words ‘tele‘, meaning ‘far’, and ‘graphein‘, meaning ‘to write’. It was first used in the early 19th century to describe semaphore systems, which transmitted messages over long distances using visual signals. With the advent of electric telegraphy in the 1830s and 1840s, the term came to be associated with electrical signal transmission.
