tape

Meanings

Noun

• Flexible material in a roll with a sticky surface on one or both sides; adhesive tape.
• Thin and flat paper, plastic or similar flexible material, usually produced in the form of a roll.
• Finishing tape, stretched across a track to mark the end of a race.
• Magnetic or optical recording media in a roll; videotape or audio tape.
• Any video or audio recording, regardless of the method used to produce it.
• An unthinking, patterned response triggered by a particular stimulus.
• The series of prices at which a financial instrument trades.
• The wrapping of the primary puck-handling surface of a hockey stick
• A strong flexible band rotating on pulleys for directing the sheets in a printing machine.

Verb

• To bind with adhesive tape.
• To record, particularly onto magnetic tape.
• To understand, figure out.

Origin

• From Middle English tape, tappe, from Old English tæppa, tæppe. Probably akin to Old Frisian tapia, Middle Low German tappen, tāpen, Middle High German zāfen, zāven.