An answering machine is a device that records voice messages when you can't answer your phone. Before smartphones existed, most families had answering machines connected to their home phones. When someone called and nobody picked up, they'd hear a recorded greeting (often something like “We're not home right now, please leave a message after the beep”), then the machine would record whatever the caller said.

These machines were incredibly useful inventions. Instead of missing important calls completely, people could check their messages when they got home from work or school. You'd press a button to hear who called, and the machine would play back each message in order. Some machines used small cassette tapes to store the recordings, while later models stored messages digitally.

Today, voicemail systems built into phones have mostly replaced standalone answering machines, but they work on the same principle. The phrase answering machine now sounds a bit old-fashioned, like “record player” or “typewriter.” People still use the term sometimes when they mean any system that records messages, as in: “I called three times but only got your answering machine.”