Art & MusicGreek → English
Cinematography
/ˌsɪnəməˈtɒɡrəfi/noun
The craft of shooting motion pictures, from lens and lighting to camera movement.
The Greek roots
κίνημα
kínēma
movement
γράφειν
gráphein
to write, record
Literally: “movement writing”
The story of the word
The Lumière brothers patented the Cinématographe in 1895, one wooden box that shot, printed and projected; Léon Bouly had used the name for a device of his own a few years earlier and lost his rights by not paying the fees. The extra -t- is grammar, not decoration: kínēma has the genitive kinḗmatos, and the compound is built on the stem. Cinema is the stub English kept after the rest wore away.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → French → English
- First recorded
- 1890s
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
cinemakinetickinematicsphotography
In a sentence
The plot is thin and the cinematography carries the entire second half.