What does telecopy mean?
Telecopy denotes the electrical transmission of a picture over a distance or the image received as a result. The term is closely associated with the early telegraph networks that carried photographs and other images using electrical signals, and with the broader family of telephotographic systems that followed. In one usage, telecopy names the process itself; in another, it refers to the transmitted picture or facsimile. The word belongs to formal, historical, and technical vocabulary and is now encountered far less often than terms such as photograph, facsimile, or photocopy. Its unusual combination nevertheless captures its function clearly: it was copying performed across a distance. Telecopy also offers an instructive example of how vocabulary for communications technology changes as a process becomes ordinary or obsolete.
nounThe electrical transmission of a picture over a distance, or the picture or facsimile produced in this way. The term is chiefly associated with early telegraphy and related imaging systems.
- The process or technology of transmitting pictures by electrical means over a distance, also known as telephotography.
- A picture or facsimile received through such electrical transmission.
"A faint telecopy of the portrait reached the newspaper shortly before dawn."
"Early news services used telecopy to relay photographs by wire."
"A faint telecopy of the portrait reached the newspaper shortly before dawn."
When referring to transmitted pictures or facsimiles, the regular count noun plural is telecopies.
"The technicians compared the two telecopies for signs of interference."
Before email attachments, sending a picture down a wire was literally telecopy: copying at a distance.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does telecopy come from?
Telecopy was formed in the nineteenth century from the combining form tele-, derived from Greek tēle, meaning “far off” or “at a distance,” and copy, which comes through Latin from copia. Its development followed the use of electrical networks to transmit images remotely. Other words built on the same distant-communication element include telephone, telegraph, and telephoto.
How telecopy is actually used
Rare and chiefly historical or technical. It belongs to the vocabulary of electrical image transmission rather than ordinary modern photocopying, although specialist sources may still use it for facsimile-transmission systems.