telephone

The noun combines tele- (‘from a distance’) and -phone (‘a device which makes a sound’), modelled after the German Telephon. Alexander Graham Bell first used the word for the modern device in 1876.

Before Bell's device, the word (via French téléphone) named a kind of megaphone and even a system of sending signals with musical notes. Once Bell applied it to his invention in 1876, that sense took over entirely.

Both halves trace back to Ancient Greek: tele- from têle (‘far off’), and -phone from phōnḗ (‘sound, voice’), the same root behind words like 'phonetic'.