phonography

[ foh-nog-ruh-fee ]

noun

, plural pho·nog·ra·phies

1. phonetic spelling, writing, or shorthand.
2. a system of phonetic shorthand, as that invented by Sir Isaac Pitman in 1837.

phonography

/ fəʊˈnɒɡrəfɪ /

noun

1. a writing system that represents sounds by individual symbols Compare logography
2. the employment of such a writing system

Derived Forms

• phoˈnographer, noun

Other Words From

• pho·nogra·pher pho·nogra·phist noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of phonography¹

First recorded in 1695–1705; phono- + -graphy

Example Sentences

When a prosecutor asked Freeman, who testified Tuesday under an immunity agreement, why it took him nearly two decades to turn over to police that and other recordings of child phonography tied to Kelly, Freeman responded: “Because the police wasn’t going to pay me a million dollars.”

From Seattle Times

“Phonography will probably be the destruction of printing,” said the narrator of “The End of Books,” a story published in Scribner’s Magazine in 1894.

From Washington Post

Irish-born Robert Gregg was 18 when he invented his own phonetic system, Light-Line Phonography, in the 1880s, which gradually supplanted Pitman in the US.

From BBC

“Listen at what Irene’s telling you, Claude. And watch out you don’t step on my poor little niece’s phonography.”

From Literature

Else what avail magnetic telegraphs, steamers, and rail-cars traversing every rood of land and ocean, phonography and the mingling of all literatures, till North embraces South and Denmark lays her head upon the lap of Italy?

From Project Gutenberg