Also called stop frame. the process of filming puppets and other objects one frame at a time while incrementally moving or modifying them, giving the illusion of lifelike motion when the captured film frames are viewed in rapid sequence (often used attributively): a stop-motion film.
stop-motion animation;
a stop-motion film.
Also called stop action. a special effect in cinematography, carried out while shooting, in which the performers stop their motion and the camera is stopped while an object or performer is added to or removed from the scene, with camera movement and action then resumed for the remainder of the scene: used to create an illusion of sudden appearance or disappearance of persons or objects (often used attributively).
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The breakup of a plate doesn't just stop motion -- it reshapes the planet.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 25, 2025
And I knew even as a child how they did it because I was already doing clay monsters and stop motion.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 15, 2024
The stop motion animation had been filmed in Mr Firmin's barn in Blean, just outside Canterbury, Kent.
From BBC ● Feb. 12, 2024
“Anytime you’re doing something like that, which was unknown: stop motion, the main character doesn’t have any eyeballs and it’s all music, what’s to feel comfortable about?”
From New York Times ● Oct. 25, 2023
Operating procedure when a storm hits is to stop motion and wait for the storm to pass.
From "The Martian" by Andy Weir
The 29-year-old video editor was also commissioned to create a stop-motion animation—her “passion project”— for an upcoming event.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 23, 2026
He makes his own stop-motion animations using Lego figures to help develop learning retention in high school civics classes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 18, 2026
In a meticulously crafted stop-motion world of gritty dockside poverty, a starving waif discovers the neglected girl in a shabby home weeps not teardrops but pearls.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 16, 2026
From the same studio that created the “Wallace & Gromit,” “Shaun the Sheep” and “Chicken Run” films comes a different type of stop-motion animation that trades smooth plasticine for the warmer, more tactile needle felting.
From Salon ● Dec. 24, 2025
Turn his body into real life stop-motion animation.
From "Sunny" by Jason Reynolds
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
