On a telephone, the handset is a device the user holds to the ear to hear audio.
Modern handsets typically contain a microphone as well, but in early telephones the microphone was mounted on the phone itself, which was often attached to a wall at a convenient height for talking. Handsets on such phones were called receivers, a term often applied to modern handsets. Until the advent of the cordless telephone, the handset was usually wired to the base unit, typically by highly flexible tinsel wire.