fax machine

English

Etymology

Clipping of facsimile machine.

Noun

fax machine (plural fax machines)

1. A device which scans, transmits, receives and prints documents (faxes) transmitted by telephone.
   • 2001, Dan Brown, Deception Point, →ISBN, page 481:

     Rachel inserted the entire stack into the hydrolab's fax machine. Knowing only a few fax numbers by heart, she had limited choices, but she had already made up her mind who would be receiving these pages and her note. Holding her breath, she carefully typed in the person’s fax number.

   • 2016, Zadie Smith, Swing Time, New York, N.Y.: Penguin Press, →ISBN, page 91:

     I made my notes, by hand, collated all relevant requests, stood in the copy room by a noisy fax machine and slowly fed the documents into it, thinking of someone in New York – a dream city to me – waiting by a similar contraption as my document came through to them, at the exact same time I sent it, which felt so very modern in the doing of it, a triumph over distance and time.

Synonyms

• facsimile machine
• fax

 

Translations

device which scans, transmits, receives and prints faxes

• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 傳真機／传真机 (cyun⁴ zan¹ gei¹), fax機／fax机 (fek¹ si² gei¹)

  Mandarin: 傳真機／传真机 (zh) (chuánzhēnjī)

• Finnish: faksi (fi)
• French: fax (fr) m, télécopieur (fr) m
• German: Faxgerät (de) n, Fernkopierer m, Fax (de) m or n
• Greek: συυή τηλεομοιοτυπίας f (syyí tileomoiotypías)
• Icelandic: faxtæki n, bréfsími m, fax (is) n
• Latin: similarium n
• Maori: waea whakaahua
• Polish: faks (pl) m
• Swedish: fax (sv) c, telefax (sv) c