film (f lm)n. 1. A thin skin or membrane. 2. A thin, opaque, abnormal coating on the cornea of the eye. 3. A thin covering or coating: a film of dust on the piano. 4. A thin, flexible, transparent sheet, as of plastic, used in wrapping or packaging. 5. a. A thin sheet or strip of flexible material, such as a cellulose derivative or a thermoplastic resin, coated with a photosensitive emulsion and used to make photographic negatives or transparencies. b. A thin sheet or strip of developed photographic negatives or transparencies. 6. a. A movie. b. Movies considered as a group. 7. A coating of magnetic alloys on glass used in manufacturing computer storage devices. v. filmed, film·ing, films v.tr. 1. To cover with or as if with a film. 2. To make a movie of or based on: film a rocket launch; film a scene from a ballet. v.intr. 1. To become coated or obscured with or as if with a film: The window filmed over with moisture. 2. To make or shoot scenes for a movie. [Middle English, from Old English filmen; see pel-3 in Indo-European roots.] Word History: One indication of the gulf between us and our Victorian predecessors is that the Oxford English Dictionary fascicle containing the word film, published in 1896, does not have the sense "a motion picture." The one hint of the future to be found among still familiar older senses of the word, such as "a thin skin or membranous coating" or "an abnormal thin coating on the cornea," is the sense of film used in photography, a sense referring to a coating of material, such as gelatin, that could substitute for a photographic plate or be used on a plate or on photographic paper. Thus a word that has been with us since Old English times took on this new use, first recorded in 1845, which has since developed and now refers to an art form, a sense first recorded in 1920. |
Films
See also photography.
special effects, extras, and the like used in order to establish an intended background or mood for a film.
1. a film projector of the early 20th century.
2. British. a motion-picture theater.
2. British. a motion-picture theater.
the art or principles of making motion pictures.
the art or technique of motion-picture photography. — cinematographer, cinematographist, n. — cinematographic, adj.
language typical of the cinema, as that used in film dialogue or in film criticism.
avid moviegoing. — cinephile, n., adj.
a motion-picture camera.
an early name for a cinema, so called because of the five-cent admission charge. See also music.
an instrument that represents the effect of moving images on a screen.
the writer of scenarios, story lines for motion pictures.
a type of kinescope that presents the effect of moving pictures by use of a rotating glass plate with images attached to it.
an early form of motion-picture projector.
an early form of motion-picture projector.
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