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recorder

nounnouncommon in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//ɹiˈkɔː.də//
  • United States//ɹiˈkɔɹ.dəɹ//
  • United States//ɹə-//

An apparatus for recording; a device which records.

noun

  1. 1

    An apparatus for recording; a device which records.

    Between 8 and 9 p.m., the recorder at a meteorological station at Harrow, Middlesex, picked up 1,470 lightning flashes within a radius of 10 to 15 miles, and observers at the station described the storm as "probably one of the most spectacular of the century."

    A smartphone is not the best camera, notebook, word processor, audio recorder, radio, MP3 player, map reader, pedometer and so on, but it is good enough replace numerous separate devices for most people most of the time.

  2. 2

    A judge in a municipal court.

  3. 3

    Also a form of recordAgent noun of record; one who records.

Etymology

From Middle English recordour, borrowed from Old French recordour, from Old French recordeor, from Medieval Latin recordātor, from Latin recordor (“call to mind, remember, recollect”), from re- (“back, again”) + cor (“heart; mind”). By surface analysis, record + -er.

noun

  1. 1

    A musical instrument of the woodwind family; a type of fipple flute, a simple internal duct flute.

    Recorders are made in various sizes, from the high soprano or descant recorder to the low bass recorder.

    Indeed he hath played on his prologue like a child on a recorder; a sound, but not in government.

    […] he beheld The city fronted with bright fires, and heard Pipes, and recorders, and the hum of war;

    On his [Hamlet’s] taking the recorders—very like a little black flute that had just been played in the orchestra and handed out at the door—he was called upon unanimously for Rule Britannia.

Etymology

From Middle English recorder, from record (“to practice (music)”); ultimately cognate with Etymology 1.

Forms

plural
recorders
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).