Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An electronic broadcast system in which special providers transmit a continuous program of video content to the public or subscribers by way of antenna, cable, or satellite dish, often on multiple channels.
  • noun Video content, especially short programs, created for or distributed through such a system.
  • noun An electronic device for viewing television programs and movies, consisting of a display screen and speakers.
  • noun The industry of producing and broadcasting television programs.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncountable An electronic communication medium that allows the transmission of real-time visual images, and often sound.
  • noun countable A device for receiving television signals and displaying them in visual form.
  • noun uncountable Collectively, the programs broadcast via the medium of television.
  • verb neologism, informal To watch television.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a telecommunication system that transmits images of objects (stationary or moving) between distant points
  • noun broadcasting visual images of stationary or moving objects
  • noun an electronic device that receives television signals and displays them on a screen

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French télévision : télé-, far (from Greek tēle-, tele–) + vision, vision; see vision.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Borrowing from French télévision.

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Examples

Comments

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  • What if when you watch television you're really watching the back of your own head? Man! Just look at that gross, unpopped, engorged pimple!

    August 16, 2007

  • "I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book."

    - Groucho Marx.

    December 24, 2007

  • "Television? No good will come of this device. The word is half Greek and half Latin."

    - C.P. Scott.

    February 1, 2008

  • Invented in 1783 (not really).

    October 7, 2008

  • "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."

    - William Gibson, 'Neuromancer'.

    November 1, 2008