microphone

See also: microphône

English

Etymology

From micro- +‎ -phone.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈmaɪ.kɹəˌfəʊn/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈmaɪ.kɹəˌfoʊn/

• Audio (CA)

  (file)

Noun

microphone (plural microphones)

A microphone.

1. A device (transducer) used to convert sound waves into a varying electric current; normally fed into an amplifier and either recorded or transmitted over radio.
   • 1965, Charles McDowell, Campaign Fever: The National Folk Festival, from New Hampshire to November, 1964, Morrow, page 11:

     Behind the tangled garden of microphones that had sprouted on the lectern, Goldwater spoke softly and casually about his family.

   • 1994, High Definition Television: An Annotated Multidisciplinary Bibliography, 1981-1992‎^[1], page 112:

     It rained hard through most of Roosevelt's Second Inaugural. Audio tape recordings of the speech feature the tattoo of the rain on Roosevelt's microphone […]

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:microphone.

Usage notes

• Metaphors for many microphones (such as can be observed at a press conference) include garden of microphones and sea of microphones. Wall of microphones is used both figuratively (of a group of reporters) and literally (a wall covered with microphones).

Synonyms

• (transducer of sound waves to electricity): mic, mike

Derived terms

• carbon microphone
• hot microphone
• human microphone
• lavalier microphone
• multimicrophone
• people's microphone
• ribbon microphone
• shotgun microphone
• throat microphone

 

Descendants

• → Cantonese: 咪高峰 (mai¹ gou¹ fung¹)
• → Chichewa: maikolofoni
• → Fijian: maikorofoni
• → Hausa: makirufo
• → Korean: 마이크로폰 (maikeuropon)
• → Lao: ໄມໂຄຣໂຟນ (mai khōn fōn)
• → Portuguese: microfone
• → Shona: maikorofoni
• → Thai: ไมโครโฟน (mai-kroo-foon)
• → Welsh: meicroffon

Translations

transducer of sound waves to electricity

• Afrikaans: mikrofoon
• Albanian: mikrofon (sq) m
• Arabic: مِيكْرُوفُون m (mikrufūn), مَيْكْرُوفُون m (maykrufūn), مِذْيَاع m (miḏyāʕ)
• Armenian: միկրոֆոն (hy) (mikrofon), խոսափող (hy) (xosapʻoġ)
• Azerbaijani: mikrofon
• Bashkir: микрофон (mikrofon)
• Basque: mikrofono
• Belarusian: мікрафо́н m (mikrafón)
• Bengali: মাইক্রোফোন (maikrōphōn)
• Bulgarian: микрофо́н (bg) m (mikrofón)
• Burmese: ဓာတ်ခွက် (my) (dhathkwak), မိုက် (my) (muik)
• Catalan: micròfon (ca) m
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 咪高峯 (mai¹ gou¹ fung¹), 咪高峰 (mai¹ gou¹ fung¹), 傳聲器／传声器 (cyun⁴ sing¹ hei³), 咪 (mai¹), 咪頭／咪头 (mai¹ tau^4-2)

  Hakka: 麥克／麦克 (mai-khù, mai-kú, mái-kù)

  Hokkien: 話筒／话筒 (ōe-tâng), mài-kù, mái-khù, mái-khó-hong

  Mandarin: 麥克風／麦克风 (zh) (màikèfēng), 話筒／话筒 (zh) (huàtǒng), 傳聲器／传声器 (zh) (chuánshēngqì), 微音器 (zh) (wéiyīnqì, wēiyīnqì)

• Crimean Tatar: mikrofon
• Czech: mikrofon (cs) m
• Danish: mikrofon
• Dutch: microfoon (nl) m
• Esperanto: mikrofono
• Estonian: mikrofon
• Finnish: mikrofoni (fi), mikki (fi) (colloquial)
• French: microphone (fr) m
• Galician: micrófono
• Georgian: მიკროფონი (miḳroponi)
• German: Mikrofon (de) n
• Greek: μικρόφωνο (el) m (mikrófono)
• Gujarati: માઇક્રોફોન n (māikrophon)
• Hebrew: מִיקְרוֹפוֹן (he) m (mikrofón)
• Hindi: अणुभाष (aṇubhāṣ), माइक्रोफ़ोन m (māikrofon)
• Hungarian: mikrofon (hu)
• Icelandic: hljóðnemi (is) m, míkrófónn m (colloquial), mæk m (slang)
• Ido: mikrofono (io)
• Indonesian: mikrofon (id)
• Irish: micreafón m
• Italian: microfono (it) m
• Japanese: マイクロフォン (ja) (maikurofon), マイク (ja) (maiku)
• Kazakh: микрофон (mikrofon)
• Khmer: មីក្រូ (miikroo)
• Korean: 마이크로폰 (ko) (maikeuropon), 마이크 (ko) (maikeu)
• Kurdish:

  Central Kurdish: میکرۆفۆن (mîkrofon)

• Kyrgyz: микрофон (ky) (mikrofon)
• Lao: ໄມໂຄຣໂຟນ (mai khrō fōn)
• Latvian: mikrofons m
• Lithuanian: mikrofonas m
• Luganda: omuzindaalo
• Luxembourgish: Mikro m
• Macedonian: микрофо́н m (mikrofón)
• Malay: mikrofon
• Maori: hopuoro
• Marathi: please add this translation if you can
• Mongolian: микрофон (mn) (mikrofon)
• Norman: microphône m
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: mikrofon m

• Persian: میکروفون (fa) (mikrofon), صدابر (fa) (sedâbar)
• Polish: mikrofon (pl) m
• Portuguese: microfone (pt) m
• Romanian: microfon (ro) n
• Russian: микрофо́н (ru) m (mikrofón)
• S'gaw Karen: ကလုၢ်ဒၢ (ka lu̱ duh)
• Scottish Gaelic: microfòn m, togair-fuaime m
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: ми̏крофо̄н m

  Roman: mȉkrofōn (sh) m

• Sinhalese: මයික්‍රොපෝනය (mayikropōnaya), මෛක්‍රොනය (maikronaya), ශබ්දවාහිනිය (śabdawāhiniya)
• Slovak: mikrofón m
• Slovene: mikrofon m
• Spanish: micrófono (es) m
• Swahili: kinasa sauti, mikrofoni
• Swedish: mikrofon (sv) c
• Tagalog: miktinig
• Tajik: микрофон (mikrofon)
• Tamil: ஒலிவாங்கி (ta) (olivāṅki)
• Tatar: микрофон (mikrofon)
• Thai: ไมโครโฟน (th) (mai-kroo-foon)
• Turkish: mikrofon (tr)
• Turkmen: mikrofon
• Ukrainian: мікрофо́н m (mikrofón)
• Urdu: مائکروفون m (māikrofon)
• Uzbek: mikrofon (uz)
• Vietnamese: máy vi âm, micrô
• Volapük: mikrofon
• Yiddish: מיקראָפֿאָן (mikrofon)
• Zazaki: mikrofon (diq) m

Verb

microphone (third-person singular simple present microphones, present participle microphoning, simple past and past participle microphoned)

1. (transitive) To put one or more microphones on or in.

Synonyms

• mike, mike up, bug (if covert), wire up

Translations

to put one or more microphones on or in.

• Spanish: microfonear, microfonar

Anagrams

• neomorphic, pheromonic

French

Etymology

From micro- +‎ -phone.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mi.kʁɔ.fɔn/

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

microphone m (plural microphones)

1. microphone

   Synonym: micro

Derived terms

• micro

Descendants

• → Romanian: microfon
• → Turkish: mikrofon

Further reading

• “microphone”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.