tape drive
"tape-drive" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“tape drive” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A cassette drive.
Corpus desk
Index EN-tape-drive · tape drive · English
tape drive · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "T" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | tape drive |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “tape drive” in English
Rare enough to double-check
tape drive is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.
No generated misspelling entries exist for tape drive in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is tape drive, spelled T-A-P-E- -D-R-I-V-E.
Definition
- 1A cassette drive.
- 2A reel-to-reel tape machine for computers.
- 3A cartridge-based interface for computers that reads from and/or writes to a tape.
- 4A drive mechanism that is used to traverse a tape.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how tape drive appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Required: FORTRAN, line printer, enough storage for approx 375K Bytes -- tape drives preferred for confidentiality.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.