videotape

Etymology

It is formed from English video- + tape,^[2][3][4][5] the tape being apparently, at first, that of tape recording and tape recorder.^[2] The OED quotes two slightly earlier examples from 1952, written as separate words and probably meaning a video tape recording and a video tape recorder, and notes that the one-word form of 1953 shows the pair was soon taken as a fixed expression.^[2] Video is from Latin videō (“I see”),^[6] and tape from Old English tæppe (“narrow strip of cloth”).^[6] The later audiotape is modelled on it.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Magnetic tape on which television pictures and sound can be recorded: 1953, in Billboard.^[2][6][3]

Semantic evolution

Within a year of its first record the word was also used for a length of such tape and for a recording made on it (1953);^[2] Etymonline dates the sense "a video recording" to 1960.^[6] The verb, to record on videotape, appeared in 1957,^[2] while Merriam-Webster and Etymonline date it to 1958.^[3][6] It followed the earlier videorecord.^[2] In later use a videotape was typically a cassette.^[2][7]

Timeline

• 1953 – magnetic tape for recording television pictures and sound; a length of such tape, a recording made on it.^[2][3][6]
• 1957 – verb, to record on videotape.^[2] Merriam-Webster and Etymonline date the verb to 1958.^[3][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. Magnetic tape on which moving pictures and sound are recorded for later playback or broadcasting.^[8][3][2][7]
2. A recording made on such tape, or a cassette containing it: The police studied a videotape of the robbery.^[8][3][2]

Verb

1. To record something on videotape: They videotaped the school concert.^[8][3][2][7]
2. To make a recording on videotape.^[8]

Word family

• videotaper

Related words

• video
• tape
• audiotape
• videocassette
• vision

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt