Answering machine


an electronic device that is attached to a telephone and that automatically answers callers with a prerecorded message and records their messages for later playback.
Contemporary Examples

Their tryst, however, is broken up several times by messages playing from the answering machine and never comes to fruition.
Some of the Juiciest Bits of ‘Rodham,’ the Hillary Clinton Movie Biopic: Sex, Scandal, More Marlow Stern May 12, 2013

But soon the lonely Chip begins stalking him, leaving tons of messages on his answering machine.
13 Greatest Movie Karaoke Scenes Marlow Stern July 20, 2013

Hawke considers it sort of like listening to your own voice on the answering machine—for two hours straight.
Hawke Gets Gory Jacob Bernstein January 7, 2010

They pass the buck, they tell you to call this person, and you are lucky if you can even get an answering machine.
How the Kings of Fracking Double-Crossed Their Way to Riches ProPublica March 12, 2014

noun
a device by means of which a telephone call is answered automatically and the caller enabled to leave a recorded message In full telephone answering machine Also called answerphone

Read Also:

  • Answering pennant

    one of the flags of the International Code of Signals, a pennant of three red and two white vertical stripes, flown at the dip while a message is being interpreted and close up when it is understood. Historical Examples There goes her answering pennant; and there she hauls to the wind on the starboard tack. […]

  • Answering service

    a service providing operators who answer a subscriber’s telephone and take messages when the subscriber does not answer.

  • Answers

    a spoken or written reply or response to a question, request, letter, etc.: He sent an answer to my letter promptly. a correct response to a question asked to test one’s knowledge. an equivalent or approximation: a singing group that tried to be the French answer to the Beatles. an action serving as a reply […]

  • Answerless

    a spoken or written reply or response to a question, request, letter, etc.: He sent an answer to my letter promptly. a correct response to a question asked to test one’s knowledge. an equivalent or approximation: a singing group that tried to be the French answer to the Beatles. an action serving as a reply […]

  • Antabuse

    a brand of . noun trademark a drug, a brand of disulfiram, used in the treatment of alcoholism, that acts by inducing nausea and other unpleasant symptoms following ingestion of alcohol; tetraethylthiuram disulphide


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