How to Use telegraphic in a Sentence

telegraphic

adjective
  • Moskovich unfolds this non-linear story through telegraphic bursts of words.
    — Jim Higgins, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 20 May 2021
  • There is little or no distancing mat, and surely this helps give the pictures their telegraphic force.
    — Sanford Schwartz, The New York Review of Books, 5 Nov. 2020
  • Then the introduction of television made the telegraphic era seem quaint.
    — Jon Meacham, New York Times, 26 Apr. 2017
  • His style was telegraphic, concise and direct, founded in journalism.
    — Roxana Robinson, The New Yorker, 16 Nov. 2022
  • Each begins with telegraphic entries putting the events of the composer’s life in the context of the broader cultural scene.
    — John Check, WSJ, 19 Nov. 2020
  • Whirring winds gave way to lush playing from the entire ensemble; telegraphic statements from muted brass yielded to warmly singing phrases from the strings.
    — Howard Reich, chicagotribune.com, 30 Oct. 2019
  • Readouts are highly telegraphic, and directly illuminated at night with soft, white light.
    — Don Sherman, Car and Driver, 22 Feb. 2023
  • Here, then, are 66 of my favorite books, in no particular order, each described with telegraphic succinctness.
    — Washington Post, 12 Jan. 2022
  • The accounts in Vail’s telegraphic journal, on the other hand, appear accurate, and even include a real-time correction of one move.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 11 Dec. 2025
  • About 160 years ago, people started using ships to lay cables across the ocean and send telegraphic messages to other continents, Vusirikala said.
    — Washington Post, 19 Oct. 2021
  • That could be useful for conversations where telegraphic, ungrammatical messages would come off as impolite.
    — Tom Simonite, Wired, 18 Oct. 2020
  • By the 1870s, as the city’s fire department began installing telegraphic alarms on street corners and in tall buildings, the watchtowers fell into disuse.
    — Brigit Katz, Smithsonian, 30 Oct. 2019
  • While Morse played up people’s interest in telegraphic chess, the game itself didn’t obviously begin with promotional intent.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 11 Dec. 2025
  • Even the invention and wide deployment of ocean-crossing telegraphic wires in the late 19th century only partially impacted this practice.
    — Robert Bateman, Esquire, 20 Apr. 2017
  • Reimagining punk, funk and reggae with analytical rigor, the band set telegraphic lyrics and shards of guitar noise against austerely propulsive beats and syncopated silences.
    — Jon Pareles, New York Times, 1 Feb. 2020
  • Marconi successfully sent the first wireless telegraphic signals across the Atlantic Ocean in 1901.
    — Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 30 Aug. 2020
  • Reimagining punk, funk, and reggae with analytical rigor, the band set telegraphic lyrics and shards of guitar noise against austerely propulsive beats and syncopated silences.
    — Jon Pareles, BostonGlobe.com, 2 Feb. 2020
  • Both memories are expressed with masterful touches of repetition, achieving a telegraphic poetry.
    — John Domini, Washington Post, 8 Sep. 2020
  • The Prada show, anyway, was about refusing telegraphic and concise runway show messages, and instead seeing fashion as an invitation to conversation and thought.
    — Rachel Tashjian, Harper's BAZAAR, 3 Oct. 2022
  • However, the speed with which news could now be received from London was offset by high telegraphic charges, which forced Australian newspapers to pool their resources and share the costs of using this now-indispensable service.
    — Kevin Patrick, Encyclopedia Britannica, 23 Apr. 2026
  • Woolery encourages a broad, telegraphic style in her actors, but Tousey, as Bobbie, operates from a stillness as foundational as that Manhattan schist.
    — Helen Shaw, The New Yorker, 7 Dec. 2023
  • Back in 2019, Schjeldahl produced a staggering essay about his terminal cancer — its sentences taut and telegraphic — for the New Yorker.
    — Carolina A. Mirandacolumnist, Los Angeles Times, 22 Oct. 2022
  • Drummer Taylor’s pulsing backbeat and pianist Davis’ telegraphic chord clusters enriched the texture of this music, though there was no doubt that Vandermark and Revis were its leading voices.
    — Howard Reich, chicagotribune.com, 26 Aug. 2017
  • Hearst and other publishers, like Joseph Pulitzer, saw circulation spikes from their vivid, lurid, and constant coverage, facilitated by new technologies that brought battlefield color to readers at telegraphic speed.
    — Emil Steiner, Forbes.com, 14 Aug. 2025
  • These details reappear in The Book of the First American Chess Congress, which called the Baltimore–Washington games the first telegraphic chess match.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 11 Dec. 2025
  • With its near-telegraphic flashbacks and forwards, and first-person narration by an unnamed journalist writing in 1990s present day, Didion’s novel creates the impression of a slow-motion, backward-running film of a land-mine explosion.
    — Glenn Kenny, New York Times, 13 Feb. 2020
  • Media scholars like Daniel Czitrom and Jeffrey Sconce have noted how contemporaneous research linked the emergence and prevalence of neurasthenia to the rapid proliferation of telegraphic news in the late 19th century.
    — Michael J. Socolow, Chron, 10 Mar. 2022
  • The construction of the Overland Telegraph Line, spanning the length of central Australia, formed the first telegraphic link between Australia and Britain (via the Darwin-Java submarine cable) in 1872.
    — Kevin Patrick, Encyclopedia Britannica, 23 Apr. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'telegraphic.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: