Podcast
nounA digital audio or video programme, usually released in episodes, that listeners download or stream on demand.
How to spell podcast
7 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce podcast
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does podcast mean?
- nounA digital audio or video programme, usually released in episodes, that listeners download or stream on demand.
- verbTo make a recording available as a downloadable or streamable audio programme.
Podcast in a sentence
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noun
She listens to a history podcast during her morning commute.
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verb
The radio station decided to podcast its best interviews for a wider audience.
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noun
The company launched a weekly podcast to interview industry experts.
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verb
They plan to podcast the lecture series so distant students can listen anytime.
Where does podcast come from?
Language of origin: Other
Podcast is a modern blend, coined around 2004 by combining 'iPod', the name of Apple's portable music player, with 'broadcast'. The 'broadcast' half is itself an old word: it originally described the farming practice of scattering seed widely by hand (casting seed broad), and only in the twentieth century did it come to mean transmitting sound or pictures to a wide audience. A British journalist, Ben Hammersley, is usually credited with suggesting the term in The Guardian in 2004 as a name for downloadable audio shows. The word stuck even though most listeners never used an iPod, and 'pod' is now often jokingly explained as 'portable on demand'. Because it is a clipping rather than two whole words joined, the spelling is short and regular: just pod plus cast with no doubled letters or silent traps.
How the word is built
- pod (from iPod, the portable player)
- cast (from broadcast, to transmit)
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