Word.ws English Dictionary

betamax

betamax noun: a Betamax (videocassette tape).

Noun

betamax (plural betamaxes)

  1. a Betamax (videocassette tape)
  2. (Philippines, informal) coagulated chicken blood that is boiled, cut in to cubes, skewered and grilled to be sold as a street food

Proper noun capitalized: Betamax

Betamax

  1. A home videocassette recording format developed by Sony in 1975, now known for having lost the format war to VHS.
    Synonyms:
    Beta

Verb capitalized: Betamax

Betamax (third-person singular simple present Betamaxes, present participle Betamaxing, simple past and past participle Betamaxed)

  1. (informal, transitive) To make (something) obsolete.
    • 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.2006, Ian David Aronson, DV Filmmaking: From Start to Finish, volume 1, O'Reilly Media, →ISBN, page 98
    • DRM can't stop piracy, but it can prevent anyone from Betamaxing another industry, commercializing disruptive technology development without content-industry sanction.2008, Chris DiBona, Mark Stone, and Danese Cooper, Open Sources 2.0: The Continuing Evolution, O'Reilly Media, →ISBN, page 159

Synonyms of betamax

Forms of betamax

Noun
pluralbetamaxes
Verb
third-person singular presentBetamaxes
present participleBetamaxing
past participleBetamaxed
pastBetamaxed

Origin of betamax

Genericized trademark from Betamax. The food is named from their resemblance to the cuboidal videocassettes.

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.

Questions about betamax

What does betamax mean?
Betamax means a Betamax (videocassette tape).
What part of speech is betamax?
Betamax can be a noun, a proper noun or a verb.
What is the plural of betamax?
The plural of betamax is betamaxes.

Words near betamax in the dictionary

  1. betalked
  2. betalking
  3. betalks
  4. betall
  5. betallow
  6. betamax
  7. Betamaxed
  8. Betamaxes
  9. Betamaxing
  10. betameprodine
  11. betamethadol

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: betamax (page history and authors); Betamax (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “betamax.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/betamax. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.