daguerreotype

American  

[duh-gair-uh-tahyp, -ee-uh-tahyp] / dəˈgɛər əˌtaɪp, -i əˌtaɪp /

noun

1. an obsolete photographic process, invented in 1839, in which a picture made on a silver surface sensitized with iodine was developed by exposure to mercury vapor.

2. a picture made by this process.

---

verb (used with object)

daguerreotyped, daguerreotyping

1. to photograph by this process.

daguerreotype British  

/ dəˈɡɛrəʊˌtaɪp /

noun

1. one of the earliest photographic processes, in which the image was produced on iodine-sensitized silver and developed in mercury vapour

2. a photograph formed by this process

---

Other Word Forms

• daguerreotyper
  noun
• daguerreotypist
  noun
• daguerreotypy
  noun
• daguerreotypic
  adjective

---

Etymology

Origin of daguerreotype

1830–40; named after L. J. M. Daguerre; see -o-, -type

---

Explanation

An old-fashioned black-and-white photograph with a shiny, almost mirror-like surface is a daguerreotype. The daguerreotype was named for its inventor, Louis Daguerre, known as one of the fathers of photography. Daguerre's 1837 process involved using a sheet of copper that was coated with a thin layer of silver and needed just 20 minutes of exposure; it replaced an earlier method that required eight hours to produce an image. Less expensive types of photography made the daguerreotype obsolete within 20 years, and today they're extremely rare.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

daguerreotype daguerreotyped daguerreotyping

The detail that the average person takes 450 selfies a year is powerful, especially when contextualized against their disposability—compared, for example, with the daguerreotype.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 15, 2026

I was Grace Kelly and that nameless bride in the antique store daguerreotype and every woman who has ever been married wearing anything at all.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 5, 2024

Ms Quinn said: "Daguerre developed a way of taking pictures using a polished silvered plate and a camera. This produced a single image printed directly onto a plate with astonishing clarity, named the daguerreotype."

From BBC ● Feb. 20, 2024

“There is a slumped weariness in his expression,” Semtner said of the last photograph taken of Poe, a sixth-plate tintype based on a daguerreotype.

From Washington Post ● Mar. 11, 2022

Sometimes she would go into the workshop and help Arcadio sensitize the daguerreotype plates with an efficiency and a tenderness that ended up by confusing him.

From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

One would think the old lady must have sat at least a year, till he had daguerreotyped every wrinkle and twinkle.

From Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands, Volume 2 by Harriet Beecher Stowe

In the latter, that life appears as if daguerreotyped: the outlines are studiously correct, but all is depicted in sad, sombre colours; the golden tints and harmonising colours of the promised land are lacking.

From The Prose Writings of Heinrich Heine by Heinrich Heine

It is a sight to be daguerreotyped upon the heart.

From Flora Lyndsay or, Passages in an Eventful Life by Susanna Moodie

What did he care for that, since he had already seen it, and it was daguerreotyped upon his heated imagination, so that he would know her whenever he should meet her afterwards in the street.

From Hot corn: Life Scenes in New York Illustrated by Solon Robinson

That camp is daguerreotyped on my memory; the old tree, the white tent, with Shaw sleeping in the shadow of it, and Reynal's miserable lodge close by the bank of the stream.

From The Oregon Trail: sketches of prairie and Rocky-Mountain life by Francis Parkman

In some intense moods of mind, it seems as if every sunbeam had daguerreotyping power, and memory the preparedness to receive and retain.

From Daisy in the Field by Susan Warner

We are only roughly daguerreotyping the man as he appeared, preparatory to one terrible incident which made him an important character in this narration.

From The Coward A Novel of Society and the Field in 1863 by Henry Morford

"Jessie Brown" and "The Poor of New York," and other plays directly daguerreotyping ordinary incidents, at any rate show that the drama is an art that responds instantly to the pulses of the time.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 32, June, 1860 by Various

With returning consciousness came the quickened perception which sometimes follows a slight concussion of the brain, daguerreotyping upon my mind each individual of these fiery ranks, in vivid, even painful clearness.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 57, July, 1862 by Various

The discovery of the daguerreotyping process was announced in January, 1839.

From Great Inventions and Discoveries by Willis Duff Piercy

Random Word

Spin the wheel and learn a new word!

---