/ˈsɪn.ɪ.mə/·noun·1899, first attested in English referring to the apparatus and projected films·Established
Origin
From Greek kinēma ('movement') and graphein ('to write'), coined as cinématographe in 1890s France for a motion-picture device, then clipped to cinéma and borrowed into English by 1899, where it evolved from a mechanical term into a broad cultural noun for an entire art form.
Definition
A theatre in which motion pictures are shown to an audience; also used collectively to refer to the art, industry, and medium of filmmaking.
The Full Story
FrenchLate 19th centurywell-attested
'Cinema' is a clipped form of 'cinématographe', a word coined in 1892 by French inventor Léon Bouly and later adopted by the Lumière brothers for their patented motion-picture projection apparatus. The Lumières' first public commercial screening using the Cinématographe took place on 28 December 1895 at the Grand Café, Paris. The compound derives from twoGreekelements: 'kīnēma' (κίνημα), meaning 'movement' or 'motion', and 'graphein' (γράφειν), meaning 'to write' or 'to record'. The abbreviated form 'cinéma' entered
Did you know?
The word 'cinema' did not originate with the Lumière brothers, who are typically credited with inventing the medium. It was coined by French inventor Léon Bouly, who patented a device called the cinématographe in 1892 — three years before the Lumières' famous public screening. Bouly failed to pay his patent renewal fees, the Lumières acquired the patent, and historyhanded
this PIE root include Latin 'ciere' (to set in motion), 'citāre' (to rouse, cite), and Sanskrit 'cyavate' (he moves). The semantic shift is straightforwardly metonymic: the machine that 'writes movement' gave its name first to the industry, then to the building, then to the art form as a whole. By the 1910s 'cinema' had displaced 'bioscope', 'biograph', and 'moving pictures' in British English as the dominant term, though American English retained 'movie' and 'film'. Key roots: *kei- (Proto-Indo-European: "to move, to set in motion"), κινεῖν (kīneîn) (Ancient Greek: "to move"), γράφειν (graphein) (Ancient Greek: "to write, to record (second element of cinématographe)").