telephones

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of telephone.

   All the telephones in the building rang at once during the fire drill.

   Antique telephones can sell for hundreds of dollars at auction.

   Note

   Only the countable senses take a plural: the devices themselves and, historically, their receivers. In Canada and the US, telephone also names the game known elsewhere as Chinese whispers, and figuratively a message garbled as it passes from person to person. That sense is uncountable, so people play telephone, never telephones. The same spelling also serves as the present-tense verb form.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular present of telephone.

   The doctor telephones each patient as soon as the test results arrive.

   Whenever a storm approaches, the captain telephones the harbor master.

   Note

   The verb works with or without an object: she telephones her sister, or simply she telephones every evening. It can also take the message as its object instead of the person, as in the clinic telephones the results. The object tells you which use is meant. A person after the verb is the one being reached, and a piece of news is the thing being passed on.

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