videophone v.

to call or speak to via videophone n.; to make a call on a videophone n.

Communications

  • 1945 Life 9 Apr. 109/1 (advt.) C. L. Moore

    From sound-proof booth, passengers may video-phone anywhere while train is moving.

  • 1951 C. L. Moore No Woman Born in ‘M. Leinster’ Great Stories Science Fiction 186

    Maltzer videophoned him on the morning set for her return.

  • 1972 ‘R. Cowper’ Clone 47 Richard Cowper bibliography

    Twice already she had videophoned Aldbury hoping to discover precisely when she could expect the clone to arrive…. Finally, after leaving the strictest possible instructions that she was to be videophoned the instant the clone arrived, she had summoned a ministerial buggy.

  • 1979 H. S. Jacobson tr. M. Emtsev & E. Parnov in New Soviet Science Fiction 193

    Twice he had videophoned; his face flashed on the screen briefly and disappeared.

  • 2000 B. Bova Jupiter (2001) i. 31 page image Ben Bova bibliography

    So Grant composed long, lonely video messages back to Marjorie, wherever she was in Uganda or Brazil or the ruins of Cambodia. Realtime videophoning was impossible: The distance between them as Roberts cruised out toward Jupiter created an ever-lengthening time lag that defeated any attempt at true conversation.

Research requirements

antedating 1945
Earliest cite

Life
Research History
The OED's citation is from a 1955 reprint of C. L. Moore's "No Woman Born". Mike Christie checked the story's original publication in the December 1944 Astounding, and found that the term was not used there. Jeff Prucher checked other pre-1955 reprints: it was not used in A Treasury of Science Fiction, ed. Groff Conklin (1948), but does appear in Great Stories of Science Fiction, ed. Murray Leinster (1951).
Ben Ostrowsky submitted a 2000 cite from Ben Bova.

Last modified 2021-04-14 20:28:20
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.