Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A funnel-shaped device used to direct and amplify the voice.
- v. To transmit (a message) or speak through or as if through a funnel-shaped voice amplification device.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. An instrument devised by Edison for assisting hearing, adapted for use by deaf persons or for the perception of ordinary sounds at great distances. It consists essentially of two large funnel-shaped receivers for collecting the sound-waves, which are conducted to the ear by flexible tubes.
- n. A large speaking-trumpet of a conical form.
Wiktionary
- n. A portable, usually hand-held, funnel-shaped device that is used to amplify a person’s natural voice toward a targeted direction.
- v. transitive, intransitive To use a megaphone.
- n. organic chemistry a cytotoxic neolignan obtained from the laurel aniba megaphylla
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A device to magnify sound, or direct it in a given direction in a greater volume, as a very large funnel used as an ear trumpet or as a speaking trumpet.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a cone-shaped acoustic device held to the mouth to intensify and direct the human voice
Etymologies
- From mega- + phone. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Those include 62-year-old Geoffrey Strand, a financial adviser who has been yelling into his megaphone from the sidelines at nearly every game for the past 32 years.”
“Does the buggy have a built in megaphone a la Northants? on May 22, 2009 at 3: 52 pm Hogday”
“Megan Kennedy is called megaphone because she doesn't need one.”
“Voice through tin megaphone: First positions please, CUE: Diplo, The Savage Bros, Mr. Dudley, Tommy 3 Jags, Alois, Phil if he's got back from Czechko, etc. Camilla.”
“And they equate it with a person called megaphone guy who just kind of walks into a party with a megaphone.”
“‘hasbara’. .yes, plunger. .the megaphone is starting to show up quite regularly.”
“That one had a bank job video directed by 500 Days of Summer’s Marc Webb while for this new song, In the Sun, the man with the megaphone is Down With Love and The Break-Up’s Peyton Reed.”
VOTD: New She & Him Video From Bring It On director Peyton Reed | /Film
“She told us she wishes that teachers would realize that blasting a sound or using a megaphone is the wrong way to quiet students.”
Consumer Reports: Back-to-School: Noisy schools and hearing damage
“Rather than an annual publication, once-in-a-lifetime book, or presidential mandate, our megaphone is the prevalence of social media and the interconnectedness of millions of people.”
“They believe Washington and London's so-called megaphone diplomacy has been counterproductive.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘megaphone’.
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Wordnik Spam Inquiries
We get a lot of spam emails at Wordnik that fit this pattern: "Mr Bob Wilson here and i will like to know if you do have X for sale". The words on this list represent a subset of such requested items.
burnisher, shaper vise, salt spreader, soil pulveriser, bible, flutes, baffles, crucifix cross, proofer, gazebo, real bubble wrap, roller tray and 206 more...
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Phones, But Not Telephones!
These are musical instruments or mythological figures instead!
saxophone, heckelphone, sarrusophone, mellophone, sousaphone, lamellophone, metallophone, xylophone, vibraphone, crystallophone, pyrophone, idiophone and 53 more...
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mega-
very large; by a factor of one million
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Collage's Words
subtle, calamity, impale, qat, painterly, piebald, surly, nihilistic, repine, slake, larder, sepulchre and 349 more...
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Speaking in Tongues - an REM list
Words heard in various REM songs that I enjoy and that I think are indicative of the band. Not too literally, of course.
pilgrimage, pageant, suspicion, penitence, gentlemen, chronic, stigma, deadlier, transit, fortunate, momentum, misconstrued and 162 more...
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-phone
denoting a sound instrument; denoting a speaker of a specific language
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GrantNeufeld's Words
community, revolutionary, knitting, knitter, activist, cooperation, collaboration, democracy, change, progressive, green, environment and 39 more...
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Fun with SI prefixes
gigascore, centigross, kilodozen, megafirkin, millimyriad, yoctogoogol, millihelen, decadent, millipicture, microfortnight, decifurlong, deciten and 11 more...
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Hodgepodge
hodgepodge, squelchy, coddle, katydid, bubkes, zamboni, succotash, megaphone, subbookkeeper, joshing, emo, truckle and 30 more...
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frivolous units of measurement
gleaned from the interweb
machturtle, picoboo, won ton, octopuss, gigolo, millihelen, millipicture, ivy league, fig newton, eskimo pi, angstrom, mole and 52 more...
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Monty Python's embarassing words
Tweets
Looking for tweets for megaphone.
sionnach 1 megaphone = 10^^12 microphones Feb 23, 2008