Edouard Estaunié, electrical engineer, novelist and teacher, the man who coined the term telecommunications

In this paper, we describe how the term telecommunications and its related concepts were introduced. We first recall that this term was coined in 1904 by Edouard Estaunié who was a French writer, known for his novels of character, and also by profession an engineer. We then explain why and how this neologism was coined. Finally we briefly consider past and present definitions of telecommunications.