Basic Details
Word: Phonograph
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: An old machine that plays back sound recorded on a cylinder or a disc; a record player.
Synonyms: gramophone, record player
Word origin: From Greek phone, sound or voice, and graphein, to write.
How to Spell Phonograph
Syllables: pho - no - graph
Tricky part: The f sound is written ph both at the start and at the end. Both vowels in phono are o.
Watch out for: fonograph, phonagraph, phonograf
Memory tip: Glue two Greek parts: phono, sound (the phone of telephone), and graph, writing (as in photograph). The word begins with ph and ends with ph.
Usage Examples
Example 1: My great-grandfather's phonograph still plays scratchy old film songs.
Example 2: The museum in Kolkata has a phonograph with a huge brass horn.
Example 3: Before radios, families gathered around the phonograph in the evening.
Fun Fact
Thomas Edison made his first phonograph in 1877, and the first words he recorded on it were from the rhyme Mary Had a Little Lamb.
Practise the CREST Way
Word Cookie
Insert the correct pair of letters to complete the word:
ph_n_graph
a) a, o
b) e, o
c) o, o
d) o, a
Show answer
c) o, o. Phono, the sound part, has an o in each of its two syllables.
Spell-o-Spell
Read the four words. Choose the meaning of the only correctly spelt word:
1. microskope 2. telegraff 3. phonograph 4. calculater
a) an instrument that makes very tiny things look larger
b) a small machine used for doing sums
c) a system for sending coded messages along wires
d) an old machine that plays recorded sound from a disc or cylinder
Show answer
d) an old machine that plays recorded sound from a disc or cylinder. Each misspelling spoils the last part of an invention word (scope, graph, tor), while phonograph is written in full.
Mingle-Mangle
Unjumble the letters in the sentence to form a meaningful word:
The antique shop sold a wooden rhapgonhpo with a crank handle.
a) autograph
b) photograph
c) phonograph
d) paragraph
Show answer
c) phonograph. Two h's, two o's and no t: that rules out photograph and points to phonograph.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Who is famous for inventing the phonograph?
a) C. V. Raman
b) Thomas Edison
c) Charles Darwin
d) Isaac Newton
Show answer
b) Thomas Edison
2. A phonograph was mainly used to ____.
a) send letters
b) play recorded music
c) measure heat
d) take photographs
Show answer
b) play recorded music
