A camcorder is a camera that also records sound, so you can film moving pictures without a separate recording machine. The first ones put the pictures and sound onto videotape; later ones used discs or memory cards. For a couple of decades families carried a camcorder on holidays and to school plays. Some sat on the shoulder; later ones were small enough to hold in one hand. Today most people film with a phone, so the word feels a little dated, though some families and film-makers still use a dedicated camcorder. People sometimes stretch it to mean any handheld video camera, even if there is no tape inside. That is looser than the original sense, but you will hear it. The name is a blend of camera and recorder. English seems to have taken the ready-made blend from Japanese カムコーダー (kamukōdā), originally a Sony trademark filed in 1981; it shows up in English print around 1982.