An old-fashioned music player that uses a needle to read grooves on vinyl records and reproduce sound through a speaker.
From Greek 'gramma' (writing, mark) + 'phone' (sound). Coined in the 1880s-1890s by Emile Berliner, who invented a practical version of the record player—literally 'sound-writing' made visible as grooves.
The gramophone is a brilliant example of how ancient word-roots predict the future: 'gramma-phone' literally means 'something that writes sound,' and that's exactly what a groove-based recording is—sound made visible and readable by a needle.
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