'audiotape' originates from Modern English, specifically the combination of 'audio' and 'tape', where 'audio' ultimately comes from Latin 'audire' meaning 'to hear' and 'tape' comes from Middle English 'tape' meaning 'strip' or 'ribbon'.

'audio' changed from Latin 'audire' (New Latin/combining form 'audio-') into the Modern English combining form 'audio-'; 'tape' evolved from Middle English 'tape' (from earlier Germanic forms) into the Modern English 'tape'; these elements were combined in the 20th century to form 'audiotape'.

Initially, the compound referred specifically to a magnetic 'tape' used for sound (a physical medium); over time it also came to mean the recorded material on that tape and to be used as a verb meaning 'to record on such a tape'.