Recorder

How to spell recorder

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce recorder

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does recorder mean?

1. nounA machine or device used to capture and store sound, images, or data.
2. nounA simple woodwind instrument played by blowing into one end and covering finger holes.

Recorder in a sentence

• She switched on the voice recorder before the meeting began.

• Every child in the class learned to play the recorder in music lessons.

• The security camera doubles as a video recorder for the warehouse.

• He still keeps the plastic recorder he was given at primary school.

Where does recorder come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin recordari, meaning 'to remember' or 'to call to mind', which was built from re- 'back, again' and cor, cordis 'heart', because the heart was once thought to be the seat of memory and thought. English took the verb 'record' from Old French recorder during the 1300s, where it carried the sense of committing something to memory and then of setting it down in writing. The agent suffix -er turned it into 'recorder', a person or thing that keeps a record. The musical instrument earned its name from an older meaning of 'record', to sing or warble like a bird, since playing the soft wooden pipe was likened to a bird practising its song. The same cor root sits quietly inside 'cordial' and 'courage', a reminder that an idea once held close to the heart is the thread linking memory, recording, and the spelling we use today.

How the word is built

• re- (back, again)
• cord (from Latin cor, cordis: heart)
• -er (agent/instrument suffix)