Keyframe

//ˈkiˌfɹeɪm// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A single frame in an animation sequence drawn by an artist, between which others are tweened.

    "Lightning is a very quick and simple animation technique that can easily be overanimated. Don't try and animate the lightning bolt into the frame by building it up over a sequence of keyframes."

  2. 2
    A complete video frame, used as a reference for subsequent interframes in video compression.
Verb
  1. 1
    To animate by interpolation between successive keyframes.

Synonyms

All synonyms
intraframereference framereference frame

Example

More examples

"Lightning is a very quick and simple animation technique that can easily be overanimated. Don't try and animate the lightning bolt into the frame by building it up over a sequence of keyframes."

Etymology

From key + frame.

Related phrases

b framei framep frame

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.