answerphone

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From answer +‎ (tele)phone.

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈæn.sɜː(ɹ)ˌfəʊn/, /ˈæn.səˌfəʊn/

Noun

answerphone (plural answerphones)

  1. (UK, Ireland, Commonwealth) Synonym of answering machine, especially one built into a telephone.
    I keep trying to call her, but all I get is the answerphone.
    • 1999 February 3, Anthony Horowitz et al., “Strangler's Wood”, in Midsomer Murders:
      That was the bloody answerphone. She must have left already.
    • 2012, Theodore Dalrymple, If Symptoms Persist:
      It started with a message in my office on that fiendish modern invention, second in its monstrousness only to the television, the answerphone.
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