bush telegraph
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.88 in modern English
24
Scrabble Score
13
Letters
2
Syllables
11
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A system used by undeveloped societies in remote regions for communication over long distances, such as drum sounds, word-of-mouth relay, or smoke signals.
Example Sentences
- "When I was born, family and friends came from all over, thanks to the bush telegraph. There were very few telephones where I grew up, so my father mentioned my birth to someone at the market. And that woman told a man who was delivering rice to a place up the road. He told someone there, who was taking a herd of cattle south, toward the villages. And pretty soon the news of my birth had spread far and wide."
- "I suppose you've received information, by bush-telegraph, that that third assistant understrapper and ex-sailorman at Tulagi is going to deport me as an undesirable immigrant."