Television (often abbreviated to TV, T.V.; sometimes called , telly or the tube, bloob tube or boob tube, or idiot box in British English) is a widely used telecommunication system for broadcasting and receiving moving pictures and sound over a distance. The term may also be used to refer specifically to a television set, programming or television transmission. The word is derived from mixed Latin and Greek roots, meaning "far sight": Greek tele (????), far, and Latin vision, sight (from video, vis- to see, or to view in the first person).
Since it first became commercially available from the late 1930s, the television set has become a common household communications device in homes and institutions, particularly in the first world, as a source of entertainment and news. Since the 1970s, video recordings on VCR tapes and later, digital playback systems such as DVDs, have enabled the television to be used to view recorded movies and other programs.
