magic lantern
1
8.7
- noun
- /ˈmædʒɪk ˈlæntərn/
- Archaic
:
linterna mágica
- Magic lanterns had a number of uses, such as to entertain, educate, and also for propagandist purposes.
Examples
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The evening was capped by a magic lantern show of Yellowstone Park.
Academic text (2001) -
I never seen a magic lantern show, Albert!
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In the magic-lantern exhibition, no one expected an image to fill the entire screen; instead, the image itself should be clear to its edges.
Academic text (2017) -
There's a magic lantern show on tonight.
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Pam identified commonalities between Jacobs's Apparition Theatre and earlier shadow plays, flipbooks, and magic-lantern shows.
Academic text (2017) -
His celebrated museum in Rome featured magic lanterns, speaking statues, the tail of a mermaid, and a brick from the Tower of Babel.
Blog text (31) -
A round outline or frame for projected images had a long and venerable history in the years just before the emergence of motion pictures, particularly in the realm of magic lanterns or optical projection.
Academic text (2017) -
I'm fascinated by antiquities such as zoetropes and magic lanterns, and I love the organic nature of traditional drawn animation and stop motion puppetry.
Blog text (21) -
The museum hosts a magic lantern presentation every Saturday afternoon.
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At the history festival, a magic lantern illuminated scenes from the past.
Synonyms
74
3.0
A machine that uses light to show images on a screen
3
3.2
A machine that shows a small photo on a screen so it looks larger
2
2.7
A machine that shows films on a screen for groups of people
1
9.9
A machine that projects pictures from glass slides onto a screen for shows or talks
1
9.9
An early machine that shows moving pictures to people
1
9.9
A machine long ago used to record and show moving pictures
A projector that shows pictures of clear slides and solid objects onto a screen
An early machine that projects pictures to show movement
An early projector that shows moving pictures
An early machine that shows moving pictures on a screen
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is partially interpretable: 'magic' + 'lantern' yields the idea of a special or unusual lantern, so a learner could infer it is some kind of remarkable light device. However, the specific historical meaning — an early image projector using glass slides — is not derivable from the constituents alone and requires prior knowledge, so the expression is only partly transparent to B1 learners.
Etymology
The noun magic lantern may come from the simple show it made: a small lamp, or lantern, shone through painted glass slides and the pictures appeared on a wall as if by magic. That's why the phrase came to mean an early 'projector' used to show pictures before movies.