Cinema
//ˈsɪn.ə.mə// noun
noun ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A movie theatre, a movie house. countable
"The cinema is right across the street from the restaurant."
- 2 a theater where films are shown wordnet
- 3 Films collectively. uncountable
"Despite the critics, he produced excellent cinema."
- 4 a medium that disseminates moving pictures wordnet
- 5 The film and movie industry. uncountable
"In the long history of Spanish cinema[…]."
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- 6 The art of making films and movies; cinematography. countable, uncountable
"Throughout the history of cinema, filmmakers[…]."
- 7 A sophisticated or exemplary film, representative of the art of cinema. Internet, uncountable
- 8 A sophisticated or exemplary film, representative of the art of cinema.; Any media or event that is exemplary. Internet, broadly, countable, humorous, uncountable
"That game was absolute cinema."
Example
More examples"Smoking is not permitted in the cinema."
Etymology
Borrowed from French cinéma, clipping of cinématographe (term coined by the Lumière brothers in the 1890s), from Ancient Greek κίνημα (kínēma, “movement”) + γράφω (gráphō, “write, record”). Compare German Kino (“cinema”), ultimately from the same Greek source.
Related phrases
More for "cinema"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.