telescreen n.

a video screen, esp. one forming part of a communications device

Communications

  • 1932 F. Flagg After Armageddon in Wonder Stories Sept. 343/2 page image Francis Flagg bibliography

    It was on the tele-screen that I viewed the mobs coursing through the streets; via the news-dispenser I listened to the latest tidings from all over the country.

  • 1938 A. J. Burks Challenge of Atlantis in Thrilling Wonder Stories Oct. 52/1 page image Arthur J. Burks bibliography

    Floods, fires, hold-ups, sports events—nothing escaped the all-seeing powers of the telescreens.

  • 1941 J. Blish Real Thrill in Cosmic Stories July 71/2 page image James Blish bibliography

    There was even a telescreen whose eyes opened on the forward viewplate, so that the engineer could follow the maneuvering.

  • 1957 J. Burke Recusants in Authentic Science Fiction Feb. 41 page image John Burke bibliography

    No word could reach the delegates. They were too deeply engrossed in their solemn ritual of speeches and declarations. Their faces and voices were carried out to telescreens all over the world.

  • 1984 R. Silverberg Gianni in R. Silverberg Conglomeroid Cocktail Party (1984) 154 Robert Silverberg

    The room was an electronic jungle, festooned with gadgetry: a synthesizer, a telescreen, a megabuck audio library, five sorts of data terminals and all manner of other things perfectly suited to you basic eighteenth-century Italian drawing room.

  • 1987 J.B. Stine Spaceballs vi. 29

    Lone Starr looked up at the telescreen.

  • 2008 A. C. Clarke & F. Pohl Last Theorem xxxii. 209 Arthur C. Clarke Frederik Pohl bibliography

    Like everybody else in the world who owned a telescreen—which, to a close approximation, was pretty much everybody in the world—they had seen the rapturous news stories that had accompanied the Skyhook’s evolution to passenger-carrying.

Research requirements

antedating 1932
Earliest cite

Francis Flagg, "After Armageddon"
Research History
Mike Christie submitted a 1938 cite from Arthur J. Burks' "The Challenge of Atlantis".
Fred Galvin submitted a cite for "tele-screen" from a 1946 reprint of Francis Flagg's "After Armageddon"; Jesse Sheidlower verified it in the story's first publication in Wonder Stories, September, 1932 Earliest cite in the OED: 1942.

Last modified 2020-12-16 04:08:47
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.