Meaning

noun a telegraph code in which letters and numbers are represented by strings of dots and dashes (short and long signals)

noun United States portrait painter who patented the telegraph and developed the Morse code (1791-1872)

originUncertain, perhaps ultimately from Proto-Samic *moršë. Compare Russian морж (morž, “walrus”), Sami morša, Finnish mursu (all attested later), and possibly the second element of translingual Rosmarus.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0