dictating machine

[ dik-tey-ting ]

noun

1. a machine for recording dictation, as on cassettes or disks, for subsequent transcription.

Word History and Origins

Origin of dictating machine¹

First recorded in 1935–40

Example Sentences

There was the light bulb and the phonograph, of course, but also the kinetoscope, the dictating machine, the alkaline battery, and the electric meter.

From The New Yorker

Unfortunately the disks he tried to adapt for his fledgling computer, paper coated with magnetic oxide used in an early dictating machine, proved too floppy.

From BBC

The Playboy Penthouse detailed in 1956 featured a horribly gaudy bed tricked out with a fridge, a dictating machine, a switch panel for controlling all the latest modern conveniences.

From Slate

And much of this machine-based service is actually self-service: ordering breakfast from an automated menu at home, using a dictating machine that records onto rewriteable LP records.

From Forbes

The library is also releasing thousands of pages of other Watergate-era documents, several oral histories from that time and 45 minutes of recordings made by Nixon with a dictating machine.

From Washington Post