record
Verbrecords, recording, recorded
Noun pluralrecords
Formsrecords, recording, recorded
Pluralrecords
- 1To set down information so that it is preserved for future reference, including entering it in an official public register.
Historians record events as accurately as the sources allow.
The committee recorded each decision in the minutes.
UsageThe stress moves: the verb is reCORD, the noun REcord.
Similardocument, log, note, register, chronicle
Note
Sports reporting gives the verb a turn of its own: a team records a win, as when England completed the job "to record their biggest away win in 19 years." Here the subject writes nothing down. The result itself goes into the books.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- The quotation is authentic: Phil McNulty's BBC Sport report on Moldova 0–5 England, published on 7 September 2012, describes England's biggest away win in 19 years. bbc.com
- 2REK-urd/ˈɹɛk.ɚd/UKREK-awd/ˈɹɛk.ɔːd/An account of facts or events kept in writing or another lasting form so that it can be referred to later; also, the whole body of such evidence, as in the historical or fossil record.
Census records from the 1800s are stored in climate-controlled archives.
Each parish kept a record of births, marriages, and deaths.
UsageSay keep a record of something: a record of births, a record of your spending.
- 3REK-urd/ˈɹɛk.ɚd/UKREK-awd/ˈɹɛk.ɔːd/A set of related data fields treated as a single unit, such as one entry in a database or a grouped data structure in a program.
The database stores one record per registered user.
Each record contains fields for name, date, and status.
Note
Databases use the word for the related details kept about one person or thing: one record per registered user, one per patient. A record is built from fields, each holding a single detail such as a name, date or status. To pull up the record on someone is to retrieve all of those details at once. Many programming languages also have a record type, which bundles several named fields into one value.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- A record groups related information about one person or thing; other information about that entity can be stored in related records or tables. support.microsoft.com
- A database record consists of fields holding individual details. support.microsoft.com
- The fields of a record can be retrieved together. oracle.com
- Programming languages support record types that group named fields into one value. docs.oracle.com
- 4REK-urd/ˈɹɛk.ɚd/UKREK-awd/ˈɹɛk.ɔːd/The highest or most extreme value yet reached for something, especially a top performance in a competitive event.
The swimmer set a new record at the national championships.
Their fundraising total smashed the previous record.
UsageYou set, break or smash a record; for names what was measured: the record for most points.
Similarbest
- 5To capture sound, images, or video on a medium so they can be played back or viewed later; also, of sound or images, to be captured in this way.
The engineers record straight to digital now.
She presses one button and the device records.
- 6REK-urd/ˈɹɛk.ɚd/UKREK-awd/ˈɹɛk.ɔːd/Short for phonograph record: a flat round disc, usually vinyl, that stores sound for playback on a record player.
Collectors pay high prices for a rare vinyl record.
He dropped the needle onto the spinning record.
Note
Here a two-word name has lost its first word: phonograph record became simply record, and records is the ordinary way to talk about a collection. It sits beside disc and vinyl. Vinyl names the material and record names the object itself. Set against CDs, as in "I still like records better than CDs", the word marks the older format.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- In this sense, record is a shortening of phonograph record. en.wiktionary.org
- 7Surpassing all previous instances in amount or degree, whether high or low; extreme enough to set a new record.
The company posted record profits for the third quarter.
Attendance reached record levels at the festival.
UsageCommon pairs: record profits, record levels, record highs, a record number of visitors.
Similarunprecedented, unparalleled, peak
Note
In C. S. Lewis's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952), Edmund stretches it into a jocular intensifier: Eustace is a record stinker, the worst there has ever been.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- C. S. Lewis wrote The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, first published in 1952. fadedpage.com
- Edmund calls Eustace a “record stinker”; the description is a humorous exaggeration. fadedpage.com
- 8What is known about how a person or thing has behaved or performed up to now.
The senator's voting record on taxes became a major issue in the campaign.
Given the company's record of late deliveries, we chose another supplier.
Similarhistory
Note
The word usually comes with a label saying which part of the past is being judged: a criminal record, a voting record, a record of late deliveries. Do not confuse it with the best-ever performance: someone with a good record has a history worth trusting, while someone who sets a record has outdone everyone before. The first looks back over a whole history; the second marks a single peak.
Less common meanings
- 9To sing a melody, or to go over it again in song.
They long’d to see the day, to heare the larke Record her hymnes and chant her carols blest,
1600, Torquato Tasso, Godfrey of Bulloigne1595, George Peele, The Old Wives’ Tale, The Malone Society Reprints, 1908, lines 741-742, Come Berecynthia, let vs in likewise, And heare the Nightingale record hir notes.
Note
Early modern poets used it for birdsong. George Peele's The Old Wives' Tale (1595) has the nightingale record her notes, and Edward Fairfax's translation of Tasso (1600) has the lark record her hymns. In the second book of William Browne's Britannia's Pastorals (1616), a nymph contests whether the birds or she recorded best. The sense is obsolete, so in such verse read it as "sing", not "write down".
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 8 facts
- Early modern poets used “record” for birdsong. en.wiktionary.org
- George Peele wrote The Old Wives' Tale, first printed in 1595. en.wikipedia.org
- The Old Wives' Tale describes the nightingale recording her notes. en.wiktionary.org
- Edward Fairfax's translation of Tasso was first published in 1600. en.wikipedia.org
- Fairfax's translation describes the lark recording her hymns. en.wiktionary.org
- Book II of William Browne's Britannia's Pastorals was first published in 1616. celm.folger.edu
- Book II contains a nymph's contest over whether she or the birds recorded best. en.wiktionary.org
- In these passages, “record” means to sing or repeat a tune. en.wiktionary.org
- 10To repeat something, or to practice it.
Note
The verb's oldest meanings stay close to its French source, recorder, "to get by heart". To record a lesson was to go over it until it was learned, a sense the Latin root recordari, to call to mind, already hints at. It could take an object or stand alone. Now obsolete, it would be misread in modern prose as writing something down.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 6 facts
- Learning by heart and mental repetition were early meanings of the English verb. en.wikipedia.org
- The English verb derives from French recorder. en.wiktionary.org
- French recorder can mean to learn by heart through repetition. fr.wiktionary.org
- Recording a lesson could mean rehearsing it to commit it to memory. compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
- The Latin ancestor recordari means to call to mind. en.wiktionary.org
- The obsolete repetition or practice sense could be transitive or intransitive. en.wiktionary.org
- 11To reflect or ponder.
Note
Thomas Fuller's The Church-history of Britain (1655) shows the construction: a condemned man went to the scaffold praying and "recording upon the words" he had read. To record upon was to dwell on something in thought, turning words over in the mind. The Latin root, built on cor, heart or mind, shows through here. The sense is obsolete, and the preposition upon is the clue to recognizing it.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Thomas Fuller wrote The Church-history of Britain, first published in 1655. openlibrary.org
- Fuller's account describes a condemned man being taken to the scaffold while praying and uses the exact phrase recording upon the words. luminarium.org
- Record could mean to reflect or ponder, as illustrated by Fuller's construction with upon. en.wiktionary.org
- The Latin ancestor is formed using cor, meaning heart or mind. en.wiktionary.org
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origins
Old French had record, formed from the verb recorder (see the verb record), and Middle English borrowed it as recorde.
Latin recordārī ("remember, call to mind"), made of re- ("back, again") and cor ("heart, mind"), became Old French recorder ("to get by heart"). Middle English borrowed that verb as recorden ("to repeat, to report").