footage

footage — noun

1. video recordings that capture real events, such as news reports, sporting compet

1.nounB1
Definition

video recordings that capture real events, such as news reports, sporting competitions, or historical moments

Example

The news report showed old footage from the 1990s of Romi's hometown after the earthquake.

Adina spent hours reviewing security camera footage to find the stolen bicycle.

collocation: security camera footage / CCTV footage

Common collocations
  • archive footage
  • security footage
  • CCTV footage
  • news footage
  • raw footage
  • game footage
  • concert footage
  • rare footage
Synonyms
  • clip

    a short, specific segment of footage, often extracted from a longer recording

  • video

    broader and more everyday term; can refer to any moving image, not necessarily of a real event

  • recording

    the most general term, covering audio-only content as well

Grammar Patterns

footage + of + [what is shown]

adjective + footage

Usage Note

Frequently modified by nouns describing the source or type: news footage, security footage, CCTV footage, concert footage, game footage, archive footage. The word is almost always uncountable — to refer to individual pieces, use clip or video instead.

Common Mistakes

I watched several footages of the concert.
I watched several clips of the concert.
Footage is an uncountable noun and does not have a plural form.

2. a way of expressing how long or wide something is, using feet as the unit of mea

2.nounB2
Definition

a way of expressing how long or wide something is, using feet as the unit of measurement

Example

The carpenter calculated the total footage of the wooden boards needed for the shelves.

pattern: footage of [material] for [purpose]

To buy the right amount of carpet, measure the footage of each room carefully.

Common collocations
  • square footage
  • linear footage
  • total footage
Synonyms
  • length

    general term for a one-dimensional measurement, without specifying the unit

  • measurement

    broader term that includes any dimension, weight, or quantity

  • dimension

    technical term for a measurable extent such as length, width, or height

Grammar Patterns

square footage + of + [area]

linear footage + of + [material]

the footage + of + [something]

Usage Note

Most commonly encountered in the compound forms square footage (measuring area) and linear footage (measuring length). Regular in trade contexts such as construction, renovation, carpeting, pipefitting, and fabric sales.

Common Mistakes

The square footage of the room is 20 feet.
The square footage of the room is 400 square feet.
Square footage already expresses area; provide the actual square-foot area, not a single side length.

Word family

  • foot
    nounA1
  • square footage
    nounB2

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

All four words refer to captured moving images, but they differ in scope and context. Footage specifically suggests unedited or raw material of real events — news crews collect footage, and investigators review CCTV footage. A clip is a short, edited segment taken from a longer piece: a movie trailer contains clips, not full footage. Video is the broadest everyday term, covering anything from home movies to YouTube tutorials to feature films. Recording is the most general, including audio-only content (a podcast recording) in addition to video. In practice, someone might watch 'concert footage' on the news, share a 'clip' of the best song on social media, upload the full 'video' to their channel, and keep a personal 'recording' of the evening on their phone.

footage ↗clip ↗video ↗recording ↗

Common collocations

Nouns

Etymology

Old English (fōt, 'foot' as a unit of length)Old French (-age, suffix indicating measure or collection)English (foot + -age → footage, with semantic shift from physical length to recorded content)

Formed in English by adding the suffix -age (from Old French, indicating a measure or collection) to foot (the unit of length). Originally, in the late 1800s, footage referred to a length measured in feet — for instance, the total feet of timber in a shipment. When motion-picture film became common in the early 1900s, the term was applied to the physical length of celluloid used. Over time, the focus shifted from the strip of film itself to the content recorded on it, giving us the modern meaning of 'video material.'