pinhole camera

American

noun

a simple camera in which an aperture provided by a pinhole in an opaque diaphragm is used in place of a lens.

pinhole camera British

noun

a camera with a pinhole as an aperture instead of a lens

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of pinhole camera

First recorded in 1890–95

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

pinhole camera

If you have not got a handy, leafy tree or a pinhole camera, Clough recommends taking a kitchen colander outside to create the same effect.

From BBC ● Aug. 12, 2026

I walked over to the Oclipsinator, a large pinhole camera that projected the eclipse onto a white card.

From Slate ● Apr. 8, 2024

If you cannot get one, make a pinhole camera and project the Sun's disk onto paper or another surface.

From DOGO News ● Oct. 10, 2023

In particular, he revived an idea first floated in the 1920s that Vermeer made his paintings from inside a room-size camera obscura, a device that operates like a pinhole camera.

From New York Times ● Feb. 3, 2023

The pinhole camera concealed in the locator had worked perfectly.

From "Artemis Fowl" by Eoin Colfer

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023