Definition of "telescope" []

• An arrangement of lenses or mirrors or both that gathers visible light, permitting direct observation or photographic recording of distant objects. (noun)
• Any of various devices, such as a radio telescope, used to detect and observe distant objects by their emission, transmission, reflection, or other interaction with invisible radiation. (noun)
• To cause to slide inward or outward in overlapping sections, as the cylindrical sections of a small hand telescope do. (verb-transitive)
• To make more compact or concise; condense. (verb-transitive)
• To slide inward or outward in or as if in overlapping cylindrical sections: a camp bucket that telescopes into a disk. (verb-intransitive)

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.

• "We had been told that the computer at the Musk, which controls those webcams as well as the telescope (when the telescope is there) had failed due to low temperatures."
• "This telescope is the largest solar one on our fair planet at the moment."
• "The word "telescope" comes from the Greek, tele (τηλε) meaning "far off", and skopein (σκοπειν) meaning "to see.""