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recording

re·cord·ing/ɹɪˈkɔː(ɹ)dɪŋ/noun, verb

recording is a noun meaning “The act of storing sound, video, etc., in a permanent medium” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled R-E-C-O-R-D-I-N-G and has 3 syllables (re·cord·ing), and it appears 32 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of recording is recordings.

What does recording mean?

noun

  1. 1

    The act of storing sound, video, etc., in a permanent medium.

    The one-party consent law permits the recording of telephone calls with the consent of at least one of the parties.

  2. 2

    A reproduction of sound, video, etc., stored in a permanent medium.

    I made a recording of the TV show so that I could watch it later.

  3. 3

    The act of registering for something; registration.

verb

  1. 1

    present participle and gerund of record (a form of record)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce recording?

  • /ɹɪˈkɔː(ɹ)dɪŋ/

Recording has 3 syllables, split re·cord·ing in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-recording.wav, LL-Q1860_(eng)-PerfectSoundWhatever-recording.wav, En-us-recording.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of recording

  • recordings plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is recording?

Recording appears 32 times per million words in written English, the 2,941st most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Recording in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
GermanAufnehmen, Aufzeichnen, Mitschneiden, Aufnahme, Aufzeichnung, Mitschnitt (act of storing sound, video, etc. in a…)
Frenchenregistrement (reproduction stored in a permanent medium)
Portuguesegravação (reproduction stored in a permanent medium)
Spanishgrabación (reproduction stored in a permanent medium)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does recording come from?

By surface analysis, record + -ing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).