The answering machine, answerphone or message machine, also known as the telephone answering machine (or TAM) in the UK and some Commonwealth countries, ansaphone, ansafone, or telephone answering device (TAD) is a device for answering telephones and recording callers' messages.
Unlike voicemail, which can be a centralized or networked system that performs a similar function, an answering machine must be installed in the customer's premises alongside — or incorporated within — the customer's telephone.
Famous quotes containing the words answering and/or machine:
“You may be used to a day that includes answering eleven phone calls, attending two meetings, and writing three reports; when you are at home with an infant you will feel you have accomplished quite a lot if you have a shower and a sit-down meal in the same day.”
—Anne C. Weisberg (20th century)
“... in the fierce competition of modern society the only class left in the country possessing leisure is that of women supported in easy circumstances by husband or father, and it is to this class we must look for the maintenance of cultivated and refined tastes, for that value and pursuit of knowledge and of art for their own sakes which can alone save society from degenerating into a huge machine for making money, and gratifying the love of sensual luxury.”
—Mrs. H. O. Ward (1824–1899)