television [E20th] Television was first demonstrated in 1926 by the Scottish inventor John Logie Baird, but the word was thought up before the design was perfected, in 1907. The first part of television means ‘at a distance’, and comes ultimately from Greek tēle ‘far off’. The second part goes back to Latin videre ‘to see’. C. P. Scott, a journalist and editor of the Manchester Guardian from 1872 to 1929, was unhappy about the formation, and perhaps about the invention: ‘Television? The word is half Greek, half Latin. No good can come of it.’ It was first shortened to TV just after the Second World War.