recorder

Etymology

The official is inherited from Middle English recordour,^[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman recordour (“one who keeps a record; recorder of a city”),^[4][5][6][7] also Old French recordeor (“witness; storyteller, minstrel”),^[3][2] from recorder (“to record”),^[4][8] partly after Medieval Latin recordator,^[4][2][3] from Latin recordor (“to remember, call to mind”).^[3][2] It was later taken as from English record + -er.^[4][5] The musical instrument is apparently from the same English verb record and -er,^[4][5][2] in its old sense of singing a tune quietly or practising it, used chiefly of birds,^[3][9][10] perhaps also after recordeur (“minstrel”).^[4][2] The Latin verb is formed from re- and cor (“heart”), the seat of memory.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A magistrate with criminal and civil jurisdiction in a city or borough: 1415, in the form for choosing the mayor of Norwich.^[4][2] The instrument follows about 1430 in the OED,^[4] probably before 1425 in a translation of Higden's Polychronicon according to Barnhart,^[2] and Etymonline finds the plural recordys in the mid-14th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The legal recorder, whose duty was to register writings and transactions, became in England and Wales a barrister or solicitor appointed to sit as a part-time judge,^[4][3][10] and in British India the chief justice of a settlement of the East India Company (1798).^[4] From about 1530 the word also meant anyone who sets something down in writing,^[4] and with new technology it was applied to machines: an apparatus that records signals, from 1867 in the OED and 1873 in Etymonline, and later the tape recorder.^[4][3][10] The instrument was known to Shakespeare and Milton,^[3] but lost ground to the improved flute and was rare by the mid-19th century;^[2][3] a revival of early music after 1911, led by Arnold Dolmetsch, made it a common instrument for beginners.^[2][3]

Timeline

• mid-14th century – recordys, the instrument.^[3]
• 1415 – a magistrate or judge of a city or borough.^[4][2]
• c. 1425 – a witness (obsolete by 1607).^[4]
• c. 1430 – the wind instrument.^[4]
• c. 1530 – a person who records something in writing.^[4]
• 1613 – an organ stop with a flute-like tone.^[4]
• 1798 – the chief justice of an East India Company settlement.^[4]
• 1867 – an apparatus that records signals or sound.^[4]
• 1924 – a performer who makes recordings.^[4]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A device that records sound, pictures or other signals so that they can be played back, such as a tape recorder.
2. A woodwind instrument of the flute family, blown through a mouthpiece at one end, with finger holes along the tube.
3. A person who keeps official records.
4. (law) In England and Wales, a barrister or solicitor appointed to sit as a part-time judge; formerly the chief legal officer of a city or borough.

Word family

• camcorder
• recordist
• XY recorder
• flight recorder
• tape recorder
• videocassette recorder
• wire recorder

Related words

• record
• cordial
• heart

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
8. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins