Betamax
name, noun, verb, slang ·3 syllables ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 a Betamax (videocassette tape)
- 2 coagulated chicken blood that is boiled, cut in to cubes, skewered and grilled to be sold as a street food Philippines, informal
- 1 To make (something) obsolete. informal, transitive
"If you don’t want to get Betamaxed, or stuck with a dated technology, it might be a good idea to purchase the latest, fastest computer available."
- 1 A home videocassette recording format developed by Sony in 1975, now known for having lost the format war to VHS.
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"If you don’t want to get Betamaxed, or stuck with a dated technology, it might be a good idea to purchase the latest, fastest computer available."
Etymology
According to Sony, the name had a double meaning: beta is the Japanese word used to describe the way in which signals are recorded on the tape; and the shape of the Greek letter beta β resembles the course of the tape through the transport. The suffix -max, from maximum, was added to suggest greatness.
Genericized trademark from Betamax. The food is named from their resemblance to the cuboidal videocassettes.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.