film
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A thin layer or coating, or a movie you watch
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
filmIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈfɪlm
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A form of entertainment that enacts a story by sound and a sequence of images giving the illusion of continuous movement
uncountable
A visual art form that consists of a sequence of still images preserved on a recording medium to give the illusion of motion; movies generally.
countable
The sequence of still images itself, which produces a moving image when played; a movie.
photography
A medium used to capture images in a camera.
A thin coating or layer
“The table was covered with a film of dust.”
A thin layer of some substance; a pellicle; a membranous covering, causing opacity.
verb
transitive
To cover or become covered with a thin skin or pellicle.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A form of entertainment that enacts a story by sound and a sequence of images giving the illusion of continuous movement
Used this way, film is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- picture , more casual, better suited to speech than writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use film
- “The table was covered with a film of dust.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
The act of making a film.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A company that makes, advertises, and distributes movies.
The person who directs the making of a film.
The activity of selecting the scenes to be shown and putting them together to create a film.
Any fern of the genus Hymenophyllum growing in tropical humid regions and having translucent leaves.
A cinematic festival that features films (usually films produced during the past year).
The entertainment industries involved in producing and distributing movies.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: form of entertainment that enacts a story by sound and a sequence of images giving the illusion of continuous movement
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.