zoetrope
/ˈzəʊɪtɹəʊp/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.68 in modern English
19
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
1
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
An optical toy, in which figures made to revolve on the inside of a cylinder, and viewed through slits in its circumference, appear like a single figure passing through a series of natural motions as if animated or mechanically moved.
Example Sentences
- "Is consciousness really discontinuous, incessantly interrupted and recommencing (from the psychologist’s point of view)? and does it only seem continuous to itself by an illusion analogous to that of the zoetrope?"
- "This was the way I passed through the remainder of my childhood. The zoetrope span smoothly, time’s Chief Designer narrowed the legs of trousers and decreed that the cars should be more aerodynamic."
- "The Rosenbloom Loop is a clever little device, but it’s an even more clever symbol of the role that discipline plays in the creation of illusion: the persistence of vision that makes sequential still images appear to move. In a sense, that’s the wizardry that Grand spins in this zoetrope of a novel as these characters love and build and pine and die."