touch-tone

American  

[tuhch-tohn] / ˈtʌtʃˌtoʊn /

Or touchtone

adjective

1. of or relating to a tone-dialing system or a push-button phone operating on tone dialing.

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noun

1. (sometimes initial capital letter) a tone-dialing system.

2. a telephone utilizing this system.

touch-tone British  

adjective

1. of or relating to a telephone dialling system in which each of the buttons pressed generates a tone of a different pitch, which is transmitted to the exchange

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Etymology

Origin of touch-tone

An Americanism dating back to 1955–60

Example Sentences

Barbara Moran, director of social programs for Atria Senior Living where Mont lives, says one of the biggest challenges residents face with their devices is that they are used to pushing, not tapping, as if they’re using a touch-tone telephone.

From Seattle Times

Here’s a list of some of the most common “star codes” you can use with your touch-tone keypad.

From Fox News

Ms. Fraser is meeting with a cluster of potential clients, who gather reverentially around a Cortelco 2500 touch-tone covered with paste gems and excremental pink blobs.

From New York Times

The 808’s sounds were riotously inauthentic: canned hand claps, a cowbell that sounded like a touch-tone phone, a bass drum that sounded like Charlie Brown’s parents having sex.

From Slate

The same goes for Bijan Yashar’s photographs of overhead power lines, which are like sky-drawings that split the aerial image into equal halves; the light-sucking, deathly black-glass casts of tools and obsolete appliances — touch-tone telephone, hand drill, cassette player —  by Jane Mulfinger; Colin Chillag’s charmingly cartoonish landscape painting of a desert city built from commercial logos and automobile traffic; Jeff Cain’s alarming video of a children’s science-fair weather balloon that grabs the attention of a private weapons manufacturer’s drones; and others.

From Los Angeles Times