Movie

Movie

Noun · /ˈmuː.vi/

Definition

A motion picture; a film; an informal American English term for a cinema film, as opposed to the more formal film or the British cinema.

Origin

From moving picture + the suffix -ie/-y (a diminutive or affectionate suffix). Moving pictures being the early term for the new medium when it was introduced in the 1890s — Thomas Edison's kinetoscope (1891) and the Lumière brothers' cinematograph (1895) both presenting moving images. Movie appearing as an informal shortened form from approximately 1906. The word being primarily American English in origin and remaining slightly more American than British in connotation, though widely used globally. The British preference being film over movie, though movie is fully understood in British English.