phonograph

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A machine that reproduces sound by means of a stylus in contact with a grooved rotating disk.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A type or character for expressing a sound; a character used in phonography.
2. n. A form of phonautograph, the invention of Thomas A. Edison, by means of which sounds are made to produce on a register permanent tracings, each having an individual character corresponding to the sound producing it. The sounds can be afterward reproduced from the register. In its original form it consists essentially of a curved tube, one end of which is fitted with a mouthpiece, while the other end (about two inches in diameter) is closed with a diaphragm of exceedingly thin metal. Connected with the center of this diaphragm is a steel point, which, when the sounds are projected on the disk from the mouthpiece, vibrates backward and forward. This part of the apparatus is adjusted to a cylinder which rotates on a horizontal axis. On the surface of the cylinder is cut a spiral groove, and on the axis there is a spiral screw of the same pitch, which works in a nut. When the instrument is to be used, a piece of tin-foil is gummed round the cylinder, and the steel point is adjusted so as just to touch the tin-foil above the line of the spiral groove. If words are now spoken through the mouthpiece, and the cylinder is kept rotating either by the hand or by clockwork, a series of small marks will be made on the foil by the vibratory movement of the steel point, and these markings will each have an individual character corresponding to the various sounds. The sounds thus registered are reproduced by placing the diaphragm with its steel point in the same position with reference to the tin-foil as when the cylinder originally started. When the cylinder is rotated, the indentations previously made cause the steel point to rise or fall, or otherwise vibrate, as they pass under it, and the diaphragm is consequently thrown into a state of vibration exactly corresponding to that which produced the markings, and thus affects the surrounding air so as to produce sounds closely similar to those originally made by the voice. The reproduced sound is, however, more or less metallic and nasal, and some of the consonants, as s and z, are not clearly given. The contents of the strips of foil may be reproduced in sound after any length of time, and repeated until the markings become effaced. The instrument has recently been improved and made in the form shown in the second cut, in which the cylinder is driven by an electric current from a battery, and the tinfoil is replaced by a cylinder of hard wax, which can be turned off to remove marks and thus fitted to register other sounds —a process that may be repeated many times before the cylinder is rendered useless.
3. To register or record by means of the phonograph.

Wiktionary

1. n. Literally, a device that captures sound waves onto an engraved archive; a lathe.
2. n. UK, historical A device that records or plays sound from cylinder records.
3. n. North America A turntable, especially an early, archaic record player.
4. n. dated A character or symbol used to represent a sound, especially one used in phonography.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A character or symbol used to represent a sound, esp. one used in phonography.
2. n. (Physics) An instrument for the mechanical registration and reproduction of audible sounds, as articulate speech, etc. It consists of a rotating cylinder or disk covered with some material easily indented, as tinfoil, wax, paraffin, etc., above which is a thin plate carrying a stylus. As the plate vibrates under the influence of a sound, the stylus makes minute indentations or undulations in the soft material, and these, when the cylinder or disk is again turned, set the plate in vibration, and reproduce the sound.
3. n. an instrument for reproducing sounds, especially music, previously recorded on a plastic cylinder or disk as a pattern of bumps or wiggles in a groove. A needle (stylus) held in the groove is made to vibrate by motion (rotation) of the recording, and the vibrations caused by the bumps and wiggles are transmitted directly to a membrane, or first to an electronic amplifier circuit, thereby reproducing with greater or less fidelity the original sounds. A phonograph which is equipped with electronics enabling the playback of sound with high fidelity to the original is often called a hi-fi.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. machine in which rotating records cause a stylus to vibrate and the vibrations are amplified acoustically or electronically