audiotape
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of audiotape
Explanation
An audiotape is a magnetic strip with sounds recorded on it. It is also the word for the small plastic case in which the strip is wound on a reel and played back in a cassette player. To some people, an audiotape is an unfamiliar, outdated technology, as other technologies for recording and playing back sounds are more common now. But audiotapes were the dominant medium for recording and listening to music and other audio recordings in the 1970s and '80s. An audiotape, also called a cassette tape, is small enough to be easily carried in a bag or pocket. People played them on portable music players, which were often built right into their cars' dashboards. This technology made it possible to easily take music anywhere you went.
Vocabulary lists containing audiotape
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
One evening, poring through the picturesque archives at the Yale Club while researching her monograph on memory and mind palace theory, Béatrice stumbles upon a curious audiotape.
From Salon ● Sep. 7, 2026
After the Bezos-owned Washington Post published the contents of the 2005 audiotape, former “Apprentice” producer Bill Pruitt said in a social media post that “there are far worse” Trump comments caught on tape.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 12, 2025
“It is like, highly confidential. Secret. This is secret information,” Trump said, according to an audiotape of the meeting.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 21, 2023
No politician learned a harder lesson about the power of audiotape than Nixon.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 26, 2022
They might even have yawned if they only heard you yawn, because yawning is also aurally contagious: if you play an audiotape of a yawn to blind people, they’ll yawn too.
From "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
