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movie

noun

Simple meaning

A story told with moving pictures shown on a screen

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

moovee

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈmuvi

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. (usually in the plural, chiefly Canada, US, Australia, New Zealand) A cinema; a movie theatre.

  2. informalfiguratively

    Any event, especially one that is unpleasant or tiresome.

  3. chiefly CanadaUSAustraliaNew Zealand

    A recorded sequence of images displayed on a screen at a rate sufficiently fast to create the appearance of motion; a film.

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: (usually in the plural, chiefly Canada, US, Australia, New Zealand) A cinema; a movie theatre.

Used this way, movie is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly warm, approving pull. It carries warmth, so it reads as personal rather than detached.

Emotional tone
Positive
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Gentle
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Keen and enthusiastic
Usage feel
Warm and expressive

Nearby words

  • flick , more casual, better suited to speech than writing
  • 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 movie

  • “They went to a movie every Saturday night.”noun

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Recorded / entertainment

movie theatermovie camera

Other combinations

movie starmovie industrymovie househorror moviemovie clipflash movie

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Similar Words, What’s the Difference?

Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.

Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • movie industrynounCompound term

    The entertainment industries involved in producing and distributing movies.

  • movie makernounCompound term

    A producer of motion pictures.

  • movie makingnounCompound term

    The production of movies.

  • movie projectornounCompound term

    Projects successive frames from a reel of film to create moving pictures.

  • movie starnounCompound term

    A star who plays leading roles in the cinema.

  • movie theaternounCompound term

    A theater where films are shown.

Related Words

Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: (usually in the plural or chiefly Canada or US

flickInformalpictureInformalpicture showDated

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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.