Definition of "cellular telephone" []

• A mobile radiotelephone, often in an automobile, that uses a network of short-range transmitters located in overlapping cells throughout a region, with a central station making connections to regular telephone lines. Also called mobile telephone. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "A cellular telephone was mounted on the floor hump between Wally’s knees and Andy’s knees, and for some time as they drove north out of the city it intermittently rang; fifteen or twenty rings, and then silence for a while, and then another six rings, and silence, and so on."
• "There was a police-band radio and even a cellular telephone in the Jeep, so he could have turned to either of those to find out what was going on up the road ahead of us—an accident, probably—but I knew he wouldn’t settle for that."
• "I spent the afternoon exchanging my old vulnerable analog mobile cellular telephone for a digital mobile receiving eight splintered transmissions that would baffle even the Thames Valley stalwarts, let alone The Pump."