History of Television § Broadcasting,

                                          

                                          Etymology

The word television comes from Ancient Greek τῆλε (tèle), meaning 'far', and Latin visio, meaning 'sight'. The first documented usage of the term dates back to 1900, when the Russian scientist Constantin Perskyi used it in a paper that he presented in French at the 1st International Congress of Electricity, which ran from 18 to 25 August 1900 during the International World Fair in Paris. The Anglicised version of the term is first attested in 1907, when it was still "...a theoretical system to transmit moving images over telegrapgh  or telephone wires". It was "...formed in English or borrowed from French télévision. In the 19th century and early 20th century, other "...proposals for the name of a then-hypothetical technology for sending pictures over distance were telephote (1880) and televista (1904). The abbreviation "TV" is from 1948. The use of the term to mean "a television set" dates from 1941. The use of the term to mean "television as a medium" dates from 1927. The slang term "telly" is more common in the UK. The slang term "the tube" or the "boob tube" derives from the bulky cathode ray tube used on most TVs until the advent of flat-screen TVs. Another slang term for the TV is "idiot box". Also, in the 1940s and throughout the 1950s, during the early rapid growth of television programming and television-set ownership in the United States, another slang term became widely used in that period and continues to be used today to distinguish productions originally created for broadcast on television from films developed for presentation in movie theaters. The "small screen", as both a compound adjective and noun, became specific references to television, while the "big screen" was used to identify productions made for theatrical release.