1887, trademark by German-born U.S. inventor Emil Berliner (1851-1929), an inversion of
phonogram (1884) "the tracing made by a phonograph needle," coined from Gk.
phone "voice, sound" (see
fame) +
gramma "something written." Berliner's machine used a flat disc and succeeded with the public. Edison's
phonograph used a cylinder and did not. Despised by linguistic purists (Weekley calls
gramophone "An atrocity formed by reversing
phonogram") who tried to at least amend it to
grammophone, it was replaced by
record player after mid-1950s.
[gram-uh-fohn] 
