A thing set down so it survives the moment. Its root is to call back to heart — memory made durable.
Old French recorder, from Latin recordari (to remember, to call to mind): re- (back) + cor/cordis (heart); a record is, at its own root, a calling-back to the heart, memory made to outlast the moment it happened in.
A thing set down so it survives the moment it was made in. The root's heart is not a metaphor added later — recording was always a calling-back to where memory was first thought to live.