photophone
French, noun/fɔ.tɔ.fɔn/
photophone is spelled P-H-O-T-O-P-H-O-N-E (10 letters) and appears about once in every 21 million words in written French, the 147,615th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Photophone is a French masculine noun meaning “a camera phone, a smartphone used especially for its camera” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Technique de téléphonie développée par Alexandre Graham Bell dans les années 1880, basée sur la transmission…”.
What does photophone mean in English?
noun
- 1
masculinea camera phone, a smartphone used especially for its camera
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
noun: 1. Technique de téléphonie développée par Alexandre Graham Bell dans les années 1880, basée sur la transmission des informations par un rayon lumineux. 2. Procédé d’enregistrement du son déposé par la société RCA dans les années 1920-1930. 3. Téléphone couplé à un appareil photo.
The definition in the French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), in French.
Source: French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
Forms of photophone
- photophones plural
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce photophone?
- /fɔ.tɔ.fɔn/
- \fɔ.tɔ.fɔn\
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
How common is photophone in French?
photophone appears about once in every 21 million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).