Telecast

How to spell telecast

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce telecast

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does telecast mean?

1. nounA programme or event transmitted by television.
2. verbTo transmit a programme or event by television.

Telecast in a sentence

• noun

  The awards ceremony was the most watched telecast of the year.

• verb

  The network plans to telecast the concert across three continents.

• noun

  Millions tuned in to the live telecast of the final.

• verb

  Organisers agreed to telecast the opening match free to every household.

Where does telecast come from?

Language of origin: Greek

Telecast is a twentieth-century blend, stitched together from the first part of 'television' and the second part of 'broadcast'. The 'tele-' element comes from the Greek tele, meaning 'far off' or 'at a distance', the same root that gives us telephone and telescope; it signals something carried over a great distance. The '-cast' half comes from broadcast, where 'cast' originally meant 'to throw or scatter', as a farmer once cast seed broadly across a field, an image that broadcasting borrowed for scattering signals widely. The word appeared in American English in the late 1930s as television began to spread, and it became common in the 1940s and 1950s. Because it is a clean fusion of two familiar words, the spelling rarely surprises adults, though the join between 'tele' and 'cast' is the one spot worth watching.

How the word is built

• tele- (far, at a distance)
• -cast (from broadcast: to throw or scatter widely)