A gramophone is an old machine for playing records — what we would now usually call a record player. You set a disc turning, a needle reads the groove, and sound comes out of a horn or a box. The word began as a brand name, Gramophone, coined in 1887 by Emile Berliner, who made flat disc records. Edison’s earlier machine was the phonograph, often with a cylinder rather than a disc; the two names then wandered in ordinary speech, especially in British English, until gramophone just meant “the old record player.” Today the word sounds historical or a little romantic. In a shop you would more often hear record player or turntable. The Grammy award statue is a tiny gramophone, which is why that prize has that name.