Flikipedia A branching dictionary of the moving image

Every branch of the moving image, traced from a single word.

film

/fɪlm/ noun · verb

A sequence of images, often with sound, shown in rapid succession so that they appear to move; a motion picture, whether recorded, drawn or painted, animated, or generated; and, collectively, the art, medium, and industry of making them.

The word carries several senses. Each opens into a branch of the dictionary — follow whichever you mean.

  1. 1 The motion picture → Cinema A sequence of images, often accompanied by sound, shown in rapid succession so that they appear to move; a motion picture, whether recorded, drawn, animated, or generated.
  2. 2 Cinema → Art & industry Motion pictures considered collectively — as an art form, a medium of expression, and an industry.
  3. 3 Filming → verb To record moving images — on photographic film or digitally; to shoot.
  4. 4 Photographic film → Photography The photochemical recording medium: a thin flexible strip coated with a light-sensitive emulsion, on which images are captured.
  5. 5 Thin layer → General Originally and literally, a thin layer or coating of any substance — the oldest sense, and the one from which all the others grew.
Origin Old English filmen, “membrane, thin skin,” from Proto-West Germanic *filmin, from the Germanic root *fell- “skin, hide” (compare fell “animal hide,” Latin pellis, Greek pélla “skin”). The word first named any thin membrane or coating; its photographic sense — a thin light-sensitive layer, then the flexible strip that carries it — arose in the mid-19th century, and the senses of a projected motion picture and of cinema as a whole followed around 1900, named for the material on which such pictures were recorded.

About this dictionary

Flikipedia defines the moving image by tracing it from a single word. Each sense of film opens into a branch — the motion picture and how it works, the art and industry of cinema, the craft of filming, and the physical media (photochemical and digital) that record it. Every branch subdivides again, from the chemistry of an emulsion to the grammar of the edit. Entries aim to be objective, and they cite their sources.

Sources

  1. Oxford English Dictionary, “film, n.”
  2. Online Etymology Dictionary, “film”