From Middle English tape, tappe, from Old English tæppa, tæppe.

• (British, America) IPA: /teɪ̯p/, [tʰeɪ̯p]

tape

1. Flexible material in a roll with a sticky surface on one or both sides; adhesive tape.

   Hand me some tape. I need to fix a tear in this paper.

2. Thin and flat paper, plastic or similar flexible material, usually produced in the form of a roll.

   We made some decorative flowers out of the tape we bought.

3. Finishing tape, stretched across a track to mark the end of a race.

   Jones broke the tape in 47.77 seconds, a new world record.

4. Magnetic or optical recording media in a roll; videotape or audio tape.

   Did you get that on tape?

5. (informal, by extension) Any video or audio recording, regardless of the method used to produce it.
6. (informal) An unthinking, patterned response triggered by a particular stimulus.

   Old couples will sometimes play tapes at each other during a fight.

7. (trading, from ticker tape) The series of prices at which a financial instrument trades.

   Don’t fight the tape.

8. (ice hockey) The wrapping of the primary puck-handling surface of a hockey stick

   His pass was right on the tape.

9. (printing, historical) A strong flexible band rotating on pulleys for directing the sheets in a printing machine.
10. (possible, obsolete, UK, slang) Liquor, alcoholic drink, especially gin or brandy. (Especially in prison slang or among domestic servants and women.)

    white tape, Holland tape, blue tape gin; red tape brandy or wine

    • 1827 (originally 1755?), Connoisseur, page=223:

      Madam Gin has been christened by as many names as a German princess : every petty chandler's shop will sell you Sky-blue, and every night-cellar furnish you with Holland tape, three yards a penny. Nor can I see the difference […]

    • 1830, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Paul Clifford, published 1854:

      A tumbler of blue ruin fill, fill for me! / Red tape those as likes it may drain, / But whatever the lush, it a bumper must be.
      […]
      Oh! those jovial days are ne'er forgot! But the tape' lags—When I be's dead, you'll drink one put To poor old Bags!

11. Clipping of red tape

• French: bande
• German: Band
• Italian: nastro, audiocassetta, videocassetta
• Portuguese: fita
• Russian: ле́нта
• Spanish: cinta

tape (tapes, present participle taping; simple past and past participle taped)

1. To bind with adhesive tape.

   Be sure to tape your parcel securely before posting it.

2. To record, originally onto magnetic tape.

   You shouldn’t have said that. The microphone was on and we were taping.

3. (informal, passive) To understand, figure out.

   I've finally got this thing taped.

• roll tape
• tape off
• tape over

• French: scotcher
• German: tapen
• Spanish: atar

• Russian: записывать
• Spanish: grabar