recorder

[ ri-kawr-der ]
See synonyms for recorder on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. a person who records, especially as an official duty.

  2. English Law.

    • a judge in a city or borough court.

    • (formerly) the legal adviser of a city or borough, with responsibility for keeping a record of legal actions and local customs.

  1. a recording or registering apparatus or device.

  2. a device for recording sound, images, or data by electrical, magnetic, or optical means.

  3. an end-blown flute having a fipple mouthpiece, eight finger holes, and a soft, mellow tone.

Origin of recorder

1
1275–1325; Middle English recorder wind instrument (see record, -er1), recordour legal official (<Anglo-French recordour,Old French recordeour)

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use recorder in a sentence

  • The immediate vicinity of the Hut, being a gully-like depression, was unsuitable for the wind and sunshine recorders.

    The Home of the Blizzard | Douglas Mawson
  • To all recorders of these things that verily happened, she here acknowledges her indebtedness and gives her thanks.

    The Long Roll | Mary Johnston
  • The wedding is briefly mentioned by the old recorders only as something bearing upon the welfare of the colony.

  • Indicator cards are in themselves inadequate, and should be supplemented by the records of explosion-recorders.

  • Tape recorders and television cameras, as well as the usual note pads and pencils, and so forth.

    Warren Commission (6 of 26): Hearings Vol. VI (of 15) | The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy

British Dictionary definitions for recorder

recorder

/ (rɪˈkɔːdə) /


noun
  1. a person who records, such as an official or historian

  2. something that records, esp an apparatus that provides a permanent record of experiments, etc

  1. short for tape recorder

  2. music a wind instrument of the flute family, blown through a fipple in the mouth end, having a reedlike quality of tone. There are four usual sizes: bass, tenor, treble, and descant

  3. (in England) a barrister or solicitor of at least ten years' standing appointed to sit as a part-time judge in the crown court

Origin of recorder

1
sense 4 probably from record (vb) in the archaic sense "to sing"

Derived forms of recorder

  • recordership, noun

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Cultural definitions for recorder

recorder

A wooden flute played like a whistle. It was popular in the fourteenth through eighteenth centuries. Interest in it has been revived over the past few decades.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.