means An optical instrument that gathers and magnifies distant light, letting you see faraway objects—stars, planets, ships—as if they were close.

from From Greek 'tele-' (far) and 'skopein' (to look at, to watch), so literally 'far-seer.' The word took shape in early 17th-century Italy, when the new far-seeing tubes appeared; it's often credited to a Greek scholar at the court who coined the elegant compound for Galileo's device. 'Skopein' is the same root hiding inside microscope, periscope, and that nosy word 'scope' itself.