silver screen
noun
motion pictures; the motion-picture industry: a star of the silver screen.
a special screen on which motion pictures are projected.
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Why Do We Call It the Silver Screen? A Look at 3 Old Hollywood TermsSince its introduction in the early 20th century, the film industry’s contributions to the English language have been manifold. Some terms, along with the concepts they described, were fleeting. Take Smell-O-Vision, the olfactory movie-going experience in which plot-related scents were pumped into the theater during screenings; it made its debut and last appearance in the same 1960s film. However other terms born in cinema have stuck …
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Nearby words
- silver point,
- silver poplar,
- silver protein,
- silver protein stain,
- silver salmon,
- silver service,
- silver spoon,
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- silver springs,
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Origin of silver screen
First recorded in 1915–20
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019
Examples from the Web for silver screen
From a crackhead to Sam Kinison to even Jon Stewart, Marlow Stern on the best bad apples in the bunch of silver-screen teachers.
silver screen
noun the silver screen informal
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
silver screen
1921, originally in reference to movie house projection screens colored with metallic paint to be more reflective. Transferred sense of "movies generally" is attested from 1924.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper