Recorders

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Devices utilized to capture and store audio, visual, or data content for future access
2. Instruments designed to document sound, imagery, or information in formats suitable for later review
3. Machines that capture audio or video for later use ; individuals who keep official records or documents

Etymology: The plural "recorders" has two quite different histories, and the one for sound devices is the less obvious. The machines take their name from the verb "record," which goes back through Old French to Latin "recordari," meaning "to call to mind" or "to remember." In that sense, a recorder is something that keeps something in memory, and the sound-recording sense grew naturally from this idea of preserving a trace of what has passed. Yet the same plural also names a wooden flute, and that word has a separate line of descent. It comes from the English verb "record," meaning "to practise music" or "to sing or play over a tune," a sense now largely lost. The musical instrument is named for the practice of rehearsing a melody, not for memory or sound capture, so the two words share a spelling by coincidence of their roots rather than a common meaning.

Synonyms: tape recorders, video recorders, players

Antonyms: erasers, destroyers