telegraph [L18th] The name telegraph was first used for a semaphore signalling device, consisting of an upright post with movable arms, invented in 1792 by the French engineer and cleric Claude Chappe (1763–1805). The word was based on Greek tēle ‘far off’ (source of words like *television and telephone [M19th] from Greek phōnē ‘sound, voice’) and graphein ‘to write’. The first practical electric telegraphs were those of Sir Charles Wheatstone in Britain in 1839 and of Samuel Morse in the USA. A bush telegraph is a rapid informal network by which information or gossip is spread. The expression originated in the Australian outback in the late 19th century. Bushrangers, outlaws who lived in the bush to avoid the authorities, used to rely on a network of informers, nicknamed the bush telegraph, to warn them about the movements of the police in their vicinity. See also grapevine.