genki

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-genki.wav

Borrowed from Japanese げんき (“energetic, peppy”).

bor+

(anime and manga) A playful, hyperactive girl.


genki

en-adj

genki (comparative more genki, superlative most genki)

more genki (comparative)
most genki (superlative)

Akira, the genki red head, is accosted by Kyouko, a predatory blond girl in her high school.

2009 July 7, Dave Baranyi, “Aoi Hana - Blue Flowers for a Blue Girl”, in rec.arts.anime.misc (Usenet):

(anime and manga, typically of a girl) Playful and hyperactive.


polymorph

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-polymorph.wav

(transitive, fiction) The transformation of an item or creature into something different by magic.


polymorph

en-verb

polymorph (third-person singular simple present polymorphs, present participle polymorphing, simple past and past participle polymorphed)

polymorphs (present singular third-person)
polymorphing (participle present)
polymorphed (participle past)
polymorphed (past)

I got hemmed in by the werewolf again and, in desperation, tried an experimental new wand on it; and polymorphed it into a black pudding.

1999, Robin Johnson, “My gnomish healer has been having a rough time of it”, in rec.games.roguelike.nethack (Usenet):

(fiction, transitive, intransitive) To transform into something different by magic.


pressie

(media, informal) A press conference or press briefing.


slush

en-noun

slush (usually uncountable, plural slushes)

Most likely imitative; related to slosh.

(publishing) Unsolicited manuscripts, as in slush pile.


fixer

Yet at the same time, this is also the source of what journalists see as one of the major risks involved in dependence on the fixer: the fixer may determine, to some extent, what the journalist sees. It is at this point that differences between journalists become apparent in the interviews – they give different evaluations of the risks. Clearly, this is a point of tension in their understanding of the situation: the prime positive qualities of the fixer are also the potentially negative ones.

2007, Myriam Salama-Carr, Translating and Interpreting Conflict, Rodopi, →ISBN, page 25:

(journalism) A person who assists foreign journalists in volatile countries, often providing interpretation, personal connections, and transportation services.


machinima

machinima (countable and uncountable, plural machinimas or machinima)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-machinima.wav

Fiona's been off at some kind of anime camp in New Jersey – Quake movies and machinima workshops, Japanese staff who claim not to know a word of English beyond ‘awesome’ and ‘sucks’, which for a vast range of human endeavor, actually, is more than enough…

2013, Thomas Pynchon, Bleeding Edge, Vintage, published 2014, page 135:

(video games, film, countable, uncountable) The rendering of computer-generated imagery using low-end (real time) 3D engines such as those found in video games, as opposed to the high-end, complex 3D engines used by professionals.

(video games, film, uncountable) The genre of films created by such techniques.


boards

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

nonlemma

non-rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger

His new novel just came out in boards. The paperback will follow in about a year.

(publishing, informal) A hardcover binding on a book.


legman

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Mélange a trois-legman.wav

From leg + -man, modelled after legwork, in reference to the walking such a person does.

[page 136] This was my abrupt introduction to the system by which most of the live news is handled for the New York evening newspapers [...] Its continued use has bred up two distinct and separate types of news-specialists—the leg man, who gets the story, but rarely writes it; and the rewrite man, who writes the story but rarely gets it. [...] [page 140] City editors rail against these news combines, but it was the instinct of self-preservation that long ago drove the leg men into tight and fast organizations.

1913, Irvin S[hrewsbury] Cobb, The Saturday Evening Post, volume 185, Philadelphia, Pa., London: Curtis Publishing Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 23; republished in “The Third Stick”, in Stickfuls: (Myself—To Date) (The Works of Irvin S. Cobb), New York, N.Y.: The Review of Reviews Corporation publishers; published by arrangement with George H[enry] Doran Company, 1923, →OCLC, part 1 (Getting Set in New York: In Three Takes), pages 136 and 140:

Morris Cramm was night legman for a columnist and worked from seven in the evening to five in the morning.

1949, John Macdonald [pseudonym; Kenneth Millar], chapter 5, in The Moving Target, New York, N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, →OCLC; republished as Ross Macdonald, The Moving Target (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard), New York, N.Y.: Vintage Books, March 1998, →ISBN, page 32:

The guy looked and acted like a cheap hood when he was the head legman for one of the biggest of the syndicated columnists.

1951, Mickey Spillane, chapter 5, in The Big Kill (Guilt Edged Mystery), New York, N.Y.: E[dward] P[ayson] Dutton, →OCLC; republished as The Big Kill (Mike Hammer series; 5), London: The Murder Room, 2015, →ISBN:

Many of the changes which have taken place in the newspaper field within the last fifty years have been in the direction of specialization. At the turn of the century, for example, a reporter got his stories, wrote them, and sometimes even made up his own headlines. Legmen and rewrite men were practically unknown.

1954, Edmond D[avid] Coblentz, “Introduction: The Drift toward Specialization”, in Edmond D. Coblentz, editor, Newsmen Speak: Journalists on Their Craft, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Calif., London: University of California Press, →OCLC, page 125:

LEG MEN cover local events and phone the information to a rewrite man. The leg man must have a good nose for news and the ability to give information over the phone quickly and accurately. He seldom writes his own stories.

1973, “Newspaper and Wire Service Operations”, in Journalist 3 & 2: Naval Training Command Rate Training Manual (NAVTRA 10294-C), Washington, D.C.: Published by Naval Training Command; United States Government Printing Office, →OCLC, page 153, column 2:

They all said, "What can you expect when you put a leg-man into a spot like that?" and "How can a youngster like that, with only a year's experience in the newspaper business behind him, handle that sort of an assignment?" [...]

a. 1986, Theodore Sturgeon, “His Good Angel”, in Paul Williams, editor, The Ultimate Egoist, volume I (The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon), Berkeley, Calif.: North Atlantic Books, published 1994, →ISBN, page 107:

Of course newspapers have to have "leg men," especially for afternoon editions, who seldom write their own stories but have to telephone in facts to be hurried into type for press time. But leg men nowadays are expected to be literate, though sometimes barely.

2008, Louis M. Lyons, “Leg Men”, in M. A. Lyons, editor, A Pause to Copy: Memoirs of Louis M. Lyons, Journalist, volume IV, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, →ISBN, page 91:

[Allen] Raymond was the son of a Methodist lay preacher who traded his Ivy League, New England pedigree for a hardboiled journalistic persona cultivated over decades as a "legman," rewrite man, copyeditor, and reporter for a dozen urban newspapers, mostly in metropolitan New York.

2009, James T. Fisher, “Epilogue: Souls of the (Port) Apostolate”, in On the Irish Waterfront: The Crusader, the Movie, and the Soul of the Port of New York (Cushwa Center Studies of Catholicism in Twentieth-century America), Ithaca, N.Y., London: Cornell University Press, →ISBN, page 299:

(originally US, journalism) A reporter who frequently travels to conduct research, interview witnesses, etc., and then conveys the information to a rewriteman who writes up the story.


versification

en-noun

versification (countable and uncountable, plural versifications)

(poetry) The act, art, or practice of composing poetic verse; the construction or measure of verse or poetry; metrical composition.


fade to black

en-verb

fade to black (third-person singular simple present fades to black, present participle fading to black, simple past and past participle faded to black)

fades to black (present singular third-person)
fading to black (participle present)
faded to black (participle past)
faded to black (past)

From the movie industry, where it was customary to end a scene or session of filming by closing off light to the camera, sometimes for dramatic effect, but often as a practical measure.

They danced the famous Merengue / Now we dolly back / Now we fade to black

1976, Walter Becker, Donald Fagen (lyrics and music), “Haitian Divorce”, in The Royal Scam, performed by Steely Dan:

We don't have to fade to black / Let the sun come in

2023, “Let the Sun Come In”, in Relentless, performed by The Pretenders:

(film) To end a film or a scene of a film by causing the image to be gradually dimmed into black.


timestream

By killing his great-grandfather, the time traveller disrupted the timestream.

The slightest excess of effort might upset the balance at any point of the time stream, sending them backward into the past or forward into the future independently of my will.

[1931 December, Eric Temple Bell, “The Time Stream”, in Wonder Stories:

The timestream is littered with these blank areas.

Two different timestreams running parallel but at different speeds. Amy, you're in a faster timestream.

2011, Tom MacRae, “The Girl Who Waited”, in Nick Hurran, director, Doctor Who, season 6, episode 10, spoken by The Doctor (Matt Smith):

(science fiction, mythology) A metaphorical conception of time as a stream, or flowing body of water.


lithographic

(printing) Related to the method of lithography.


anchorman

From anchor + man. Senses 1 and 4 derive from sense 2, sense 3 is literal.

(television, radio) The main host of a television or radio program, particularly one relating to the broadcast of news.

مُذِيع أَخْبَار

muḏīʕ ʔaḵbār


erlking

Partial calque of German Erlkönig (literally “alder-king”), a mistranslation of Danish ellerkonge (“king of the elves”).

pcal

This line, and indeed the whole passage (lines 653-664), allude to the well-known poem by Goethe about the erlking, hoary enchanter of the elf-haunted alderwood, who falls in love with the delicate little boy of a belated traveler.

1962, Charles Kinbote [pseudonym; Vladimir Nabokov], Pale Fire, New York, N.Y.: Berkley Books, published November 1985, →ISBN:

So easy for one young son to be swallowed up in a world teeming with Erlkings, real and imagined.

2010, Rachel Billington, The Missing Boy, Hachette, →ISBN:

He was in the forest looking to see the trees / But none were there / He found a girl / She found the erlking

2012, ミラクルミュージカル (lyrics and music), “Murders”, in Hawaii: Part II:

By now, he seems less a cartoon character than some contemporary Erlking, the malicious spirit made famous by Goethe (and Schubert) but found originally in a Danish ballad.

2018 October 22, Carol Rumens, “Poem of the week: Three Poetesses by Kristín Ómarsdóttir”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

(European folklore) In German literature and modern folklore, a malicious elf or spirit who preys on children.


in character

It was difficult to stay in character, because I kept wanting to laugh.

(idiomatic, drama, roleplaying games) Acting as the character, not as oneself.


apostrophic

All we need to know is that, in Shakespeare’s time, an apostrophe indicated omitted letters, which meant Hamlet could say with supreme apostrophic confidence: “Fie on’t! O fie!”; […]

2003 November 6, Lynne Truss, “The Tractable Apostrophe”, in Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, London: Profile Books Ltd, →ISBN, page 38:

(orthography) Pertaining to the grammatical use of, or using, the apostrophe (the diacritical mark ').

apostrófico

pertaining to the apostrophe (the diacritical mark ')


lead-in

(journalism) A short phrase that begins the caption of a photograph.


interrogative

/ˌɪn.təˈɹɒɡ.ə.tɪv/

/ˌɪn.təˈɹɑ.ɡə.tɪv/

[ˌɪn.təˈɹɑ.ɡə.ɾɪv]

/ˌɪn.təˈɹɔɡ.ə.tɪv/

[ˌɪn.təˈɹɔɡ.ə.ɾɪv]

There be five manner of points and divisions most used among cunning men; the which if they be well used, make the sentence very light and easy to be understood, both to the reader and hearer: and they be these, virgil,—come,—parenthesis,—plain point,—interrogative.

Whoever introduced the several points, it seems that a full-point, a point called come, answering to our colon-point, a point called virgil answering to our comma-point, the parenthesis-points and interrogative-point, were used at the close of the fourteenth, or beginning of the fifteenth century.

1842, F. Francillon, An Essay on Punctuation, page 9:

(typography, archaic) Synonym of question mark ⟨?⟩.


out of character

I was out of character for most of the first act because those people in the third row wouldn't stop chatting.

(idiomatic, acting) Not in character; not in the zone; not successfully performing within the mindset of a given character in a theatrical performance.

After watching him perform so energetically, it is a bit of a trip to hang out with him when he's out of character. In real life, he's really mellow.

Susan asked the GM, out of character, whether she was able to sense magic in the room.

The comedian stepped out of character to mug directly to the audience.

(idiomatic, acting, roleplaying games) Not acting; not "on"; behaving within one's natural personality rather than that of a character, or taking actions entirely outside the fictional context.


terrene

en-adj

terrene (comparative more terrene, superlative most terrene)

more terrene (comparative)
most terrene (superlative)

From Middle English terrene, from Anglo-Norman terriene, feminine of terrien, from Latin terrēnus, from terra (“earth”).

(science fiction) Made of matter (as opposed to antimatter).


imprimatur

en-noun

imprimatur (plural imprimaturs or imprimantur)

imprimaturs (plural)
imprimantur (plural)

/ˌɪm.pɹɪˈmɑː.tə/

/ˌɪm.pɹɪˈmɑː.tʊə/

/ɪmˈpɹɪmətə/

/ɪmpɹɪˈmɑtʊɹ/

/ɪmˈpɹɪmətɚ/

/ɪmˈpɹɪmətʊɹ/

From Latin imprimātur (“let it be printed”), third person singular present subjunctive passive form of imprimere (“to imprint”).

The Cheats · A Comedy · Written in the Year, M.DC.LXII. Imprimatur, Roger L'estrange. Nov. 5. 1663. By John Wilson

1664, John Wilson, The Cheats, publication info page

Sometimes 5 Imprimaturs are ſeen together dialogue-wiſe in the Piatza of one Title page, complementing and ducking each other with their ſhav'n reverences, whether the Author, who ſtands by in perplexity at the foot of his Epiſtle, ſhall to the Preſſe or to the ſpunge.

1644, John Milton, Areopagitica; a Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England, London: [s.n.], →OCLC, page 8:

(printing) An official license to publish or print something, especially when censorship applies.


teaser

→ German: Teaser

(television) A brief portion of a television episode shown at the beginning, often before the main title sequence, meant to introduce the story and entice viewers to watch the rest of the episode.


roadshow

In 2004, Gibson’s roadshow tour for The Passion of the Christ saw him visiting church groups and giving impassioned speeches about the film (which Hollywood studios refused to fund or distribute).

2016 August 22, David Sims, “Why ‘Ben-Hur’ Was Hollywood's $100M Mistake”, in The Atlantic:

(film) The showing of a film in selected cinemas prior to its general release.


barn doors

Clip the C-47 to the barn doors.

Some broads have barn doors (see page 115) to block gross light spill into other set areas; others have even an adjustable beam, […]

1976, Herbert Zettl, Television Production Handbook, volume 10, page 105:

(film) Four hinged metal slats that come (or are attachable) on the front of cinema lights, used for shaping light and fastening light gels.


storyline

From story + line. The climate science usage is defined in the IPCC WG III AR5 report (2014).

That film had a wonderful storyline, but the poor acting let it down.


confessionalism

confessionalism (countable and uncountable, plural confessionalisms)

Confessionalism (poetry)
Confessionalism (religion)

Her rendition of "Dry Land" from her first album, Back to the Night, was a poetic fusion of music and lyrics that achieved an intimate tone too often sacrificed to confessionalism by other singers.

1977 April 23, Steve Blevins, “Armatrading: "Sit Back And See"”, in Gay Community News, page 11:

(poetry) A style of American poetry that draws on the personal history of the poet.


mech

mech (countable and uncountable, plural mechs)

(science fiction) A large piloted combat robot.

But I reprogrammed the recognition codes, and they won't treat him as Roubor Transic, nor will they obey any order he gives them. He's Mr. X to the mechs, a casual human to be taken care of just as well as possible, but never, never released.

1999, Analog Science Fiction & Fact - Volume 119, page 55:

He particularly liked the box full of "companions," small, hand-held mechs with advanced AI functions, programmed as individual advice and information systems.

2001, Robert I. Katz, Edward Maret: A Novel of the Future, page 100:

She grew up in Lower Manhattan, suffering the impeccably programmed attentions of the nanny mechs that did the work her mother and father couldn't be bothered with.

2006, Lou Anders, Futureshocks, page 75:

After a round of hugs and kisses, they headed to the lounge where Genie met them at the door and escorted them to the new VIP section followed by a mech that took their drink orders.

2019, Ron S. Nolan, Met Chron New-Humans:


subtitle

(authorship) A heading below or after a title.

Coordinate term: intertitle

Careful viewers have long observed that in the movies, one can not only watch but read cigarettes like subtitles — translating the action on the screen into another language which the camera registers but rarely foregrounds, a part of the thickness of the medium which is almost never brought into focus. […] The cigarette in the scene serves as a subtext, a mute caption or subtitle, sometimes accompanying, sometimes contradicting or diverting the explicit premise of the action or the open meaning of signs.

1995, Richard Klein, “Introduction”, in Cigarettes are sublime, Paperback edition, Durham: Duke University Press, published 1993, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 9:

(cinematography, television) Textual versions of the dialogue in films (and similar media such as television or video games), usually displayed at the bottom of the screen.


centauroid

(fantasy, science fiction) A creature resembling a centaur.


minum

(printing, obsolete) A small kind of printing type; minion.


Zaum

From Russian за́умь (záumʹ, literally “nonsense”).

bor

(literature) Linguistic experiments in sound symbolism and language creation, associated with futurist poets of the Russian Empire.


hammocking

Hammocking tries to establish a new program, or to recover the audience for a show slipping in popularity […]

1994, Sydney W Head, Christopher H Sterling, Lemuel B Schofield, Broadcasting in America: a survey of electronic media:

Indeed, the acceptance that hammocking and the mixed-schedule is in decline formed an important part of the BBC's argument for new digital channels.

2004, Damian Tambini, Jamie Cowling, From public service broadcasting to public service communications:

Hammocking is a frequently employed strategy. For example, it is often seen in children's cartoon blocks in which a newcomer is sandwiched between two established series.

2005, Philippe Perebinossoff, Brian Gross, Lynne S Gross, Programming for TV, radio, and the Internet:

(broadcasting) The scheduling of a new or unpopular program between two popular ones in the hope that viewers will watch it.


backfill

en-noun

backfill (countable and uncountable, plural backfills)

(literature) Material in a story set earlier in the past, providing history or context for the current action.


cloaking device

cloaking device (plural cloaking devices)

1968. Coined by D. C. Fontana in the script for the Star Trek episode The Enterprise Incident.

Spock: "I believe the Romulans have developed a cloaking device which renders our tracking sensors useless."

1968, The Enterprise Incident (Star Trek), season 3, episode 2, Dorothy Catherine Fontana (actor):

Captain Needa: "They can't have disappeared. No ship that small has a cloaking device."

1980, The Empire Strikes Back, Leigh Brackett, Lawrence Kasdan, and George Lucas (actors):

I put out my hand and touched the warm surface of the camouflaged Rolls-Royce. I was going to ask Mycroft if I could have the cloaking device fitted to my Speedster but I was too late; enthused by my interest he had trotted off to a large roll-top bureau and was beckoning me over excitedly.

(science fiction) A device which renders a person or thing invisible.


saurian

From Sauria (suborder of lizards) + -an (suffix forming adjectives), under influence from earlier French saurien.

compound

After dinner we all went on deck and watched the unfamiliar scenes of a Capronian night--that is, all but von Schoenvorts. There was less to see than to hear. From the great inland lake behind us came the hissing and the screaming of countless saurians. Above us we heard the flap of giant wings, while from the shore rose the multitudinous voices of a tropical jungle--of a warm, damp atmosphere such as must have enveloped the entire earth during the Palezoic and Mesozoic eras.

1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter VI, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:

Good evening, fellow saurians, and welcome once again to the Tri-Sports Arena! I'm your host, Raz Charkov...

1986, Kevin Eastman & al., Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Vol. I, No. 6, page 15

(popularly, especially science fiction) Any large reptilian animal, including crocodiles and reptilian aliens.


boldfaced

en-adj

boldfaced (comparative more boldfaced, superlative most boldfaced)

more boldfaced (comparative)
most boldfaced (superlative)

(typography) Of text emphasized by being set in a font having thicker strokes, yielding a heavier or darker appearance.


cutting room

(film) A room in which a film is edited to its final form.


swash

en-noun

swash (countable and uncountable, plural swashes)

Scandinavian. Compare Swedish dialect svasska, Norwegian svakka, English dialect swack (“a blow”).

Yet Svvaſh-Letters, […] ought to have the Upper Sholder of that Svvaſh Sculped dovvn ſtraight, viz. to a Right Angle, or Square vvith the Face; […]

1683, Joseph Moxon, “Numb[er] VI. Applied to the Art of Printing.”, in Mechanick Exercises: Or, The Doctrine of Handy-Works. Applied to the Art of Printing. […], volume II, London: […] Joseph Moxon […], →OCLC, § 4 (Of Graving and Sculpting the Insides of Steel Letters), page 118:

There is a group of decorative swash initials, too.

1955, Club of Printing Women of New York, Antique, Modern & Swash: A Brief History of Women in Printing, page 18:

so swash versions of the capitals were produced as alternatives.

1986, Walter Tracy, Letters of Credit: A View of Type Design, page 163:

Tracy also wrote that the italic was too distinctive to combine well with the roman, and that the alternative swash characters made for the italic "prettify the text only at the expense of comforatable reading."

1992, Allan Haley, Typographic Milestones, page 110:

GX provides a mechanism for determining if a glyph is at the start or end of a text line (so swash substitutions could be made dependent on this) while Opentype ^([sic]) does not.

2004, George Williams, “Beyond Glyphs, Advanced Typographic Features of Fonts”, in Apostolos Syropoulos, Karl Berry, Yannis Haralambous, editors, TeX, XML, and Digital Typography, page 258:

The grim satisfied smile on the woman's pug face suggests that she is doing this primarily to take revenge upon the absent, so conspiciously absent husband: there is a happy violence in the very swash of her signature.

To differentiate between a swash and a flourish, note that swash is a typographical term that refers to the end of a letter that is extended in a curved flourish, and a flourish itself is just a decorative curl in general.

2020, Lisa Quine, Vintage Hand Lettering:

(typography) A long, protruding ornamental line or pen stroke found in some typefaces and styles of calligraphy.


swash

en-adj

swash (comparative swasher, superlative swashest)

swasher (comparative)
swashest (superlative)

The French compositor took the greek capitals for latin ones and sought out his swashest type to set the handwritten letters,

1936, Acta arithmetica - Volume 58, page 217:

The failing to avoid at all costs when using this type of capital is that of making them too swash.

1967, John Le F. Dumpleton, Teach Yourself Handwriting, page 45:

A couple of the swashest Italic capitals have gone over the top

2001, Typography 21: The Annual of the Type Directors Club, page 285:


catchword

(printing, historical) A word under the right-hand side of the last line on a book page that repeats the first word on the following page.

siirtymäsana

word that repeats the first word on the following page


boldface

en-noun

boldface (countable and uncountable, plural boldfaces)

(typography) A font that is dark, having a high ratio of ink to white space, written or drawn with thick strong lines.


Gotham

Salmagundi (periodical)
Washington Irving

When originally used in England, the meaning of the place name Gotham was literally “homestead where goats are kept”, from Old English gāt (“goat”) + hām (“home”).
As nickname for New York City, first used 1807 by Washington Irving in his Salmagundi Papers.


yaoi

yaoi (countable and uncountable, plural yaoi or yaois)

From Japanese やおい (yaoi), a blend of 山(やま)無(な)し (yama nashi, “no climax”) + 落(お)ち無(な)し (ochi nashi, “no point”) + 意味(いみ)無(な)し (imi nashi, “no meaning”), originally mocking those who criticised early yaoi works for being too focused on sex scenes instead of storylines.

ja-blend

(pornography, anime, manga) A form of hentai involving two or more males in a gay relationship.

ইয়াওই

(anime, manga) A narrative or visual work featuring a romance or sexual relationship between two or more men.


FTL

en-noun

FTL (countable and uncountable, plural FTLs)

They had been slowly trailing the freighter for over a week, waiting for the ship to drop out of FTL.

2016, A.K. Brown, Jumpstart (Champagne Universe Series: Book 1), page 19:

(science fiction) Initialism of faster-than-light.


logline

First attested in 1613 as logge-line. A compound of log + line.

Coordinate term: elevator pitch

Screenwriting Tip #12: If you don't know your own logline, you probably don't know what your script is about. Some writers will tell you they don't have a logline. Their screenplay is “too complex” or “too character-driven,” […]

2013, Xander Bennett, Screenwriting Tips, You Hack, page 16:

The first step in outlining is to make sure that your logline, that one-or-two- sentence summary of your movie you first created in chapter 2 (“Jump-starting the Screenplay”), is the best that it can be in capturing what your movie is about now.

2013, Linda Venis, Cut to the Chase: Writing Feature Films with the Pros at UCLA Extension Writers' Program, Penguin, →ISBN:

(authorship) A very short summary of a script or screenplay.


lockup

(printing, historical) A device for locking type into position for printing.


introversion

introversion (usually uncountable, plural introversions)

/ɪntɹəʊˈvɜːʃən/

/ɪntɹəˈvəɹʒən/

/ɪntɹəˈvəɹʃən/

/ɪntɹoʊˈvəɹʃən/

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-introversion.wav

From New Latin intrōversio, from intrōvertere (“to turn within”), from Classical Latin intro (“within”) and vertere (“to turn”). Equivalent to introvert + -sion.

Such introversion is merely a matter of form.

1896, Richard Green Moulton, The Literary Study of the Bible, page 50:

(poetry and literature) Arrangement of two similar words, lines, etc. to form the middle part of a structure.


logotype

(typography) A single type combining two or more letters (as a ligature or otherwise).


installment

A 1732 alteration of estallment, from Anglo-Norman estaler (“fix payments”), from Old French estal (“fixed position”), from Old High German stal (“stall", "standing place”)
The sense of "part of a whole produced in advance of the rest" is from 1823.

der

With The Two Towers, the new installment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, about to storm the box office, we are seeing what might be called the enchanting of America.

2010, Michael A. Cramer, Medieval Fantasy as Performance, →ISBN, page ix:

It is a serial story which we are all reading, and which grows in vital interest with each successive installment.

2012, Charles W. Chesnutt, The Marrow of Tradition, →ISBN:

(publishing, media) A part of a published or broadcast serial.


redshirt

/ˈɹɛd.ʃəː(ɹ)t/

Redshirt (college sports)
Star Trek: The Original Series
Starfleet
redshirt (stock character)

Calque of Italian camicia rossa, equivalent to red + shirt. In later senses with reference to the uniforms or outfits worn by such people. The fandom slang sense emerged from the tendency of red-uninformed Starfleet officers to die in episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series.

Sensing danger, Captain Kirk decided to beam down to the surface with Spock, McCoy, and a couple of redshirts.

I am not a goddamn redshirt! I have a purpose!

2017, 42m, in 12 Monkeys, season 3, episode 6:

(fiction, science fiction, fandom slang) An unimportant character introduced only to be killed in order to underscore the peril to the important characters; an expendable character.


poulter's measure

en-noun

poulter's measure (plural poulter's measures)

Coined by George Gascoigne in 1576, because it was said that poulters gave 12 eggs for the first dozen and 14 if you bought a second dozen.

Good ladies, ye that have your pleasure in exile
Step in your foot, come take a place and mourn with me awhile.
And such as by their lords do set but little price,
Let them sit still, it skills them not what chance come on the dice.

1547, Earl Surrey, Complaint on the absence of her lover being at sea.:

(poetry) A metre with alternate lines of 12 and 14 syllables.


go to bed

en-verb

go to bed (third-person singular simple present goes to bed, present participle going to bed, simple past went to bed, past participle gone to bed)

goes to bed (present singular third-person)
going to bed (participle present)
went to bed (past)
gone to bed (participle past)

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Already attested in Old English as tō bedde gān.

Coordinate term: put to bed

The army newspaper "went to bed" several hours before the civilian one, […]

1949, Max Eisen, How to Increase Daily Newspaper Circulation, page 43:

So gone are the days when a Vanguard reporter who had gone to cover an assignment in Victoria Island may not get to his office at Kirikiri before the newspaper went to bed because the reporter was held back by the usual Lagos traffic jam.

2007, Ikechukwu Enoch Nwosu, E. O. Soola, Communication in Global, ICTs and Ecosystem Perspectives, page 238:

(printing) Of a newspaper: to finish being prepared for printing.


screamer

(journalism, slang) An exclamation mark.

Hartley's argument usefully reminds us that the spread of celebrity is not just the consequence of an accumulation of publicity handouts, advertisements, chat show interviews, or the shock-horror revelations in the tabloid screamers.

2004, Graeme Turner, Understanding Celebrity, page 17:

(journalism, slang) A large, attention-getting headline.


cutline

(journalism, broadcasting) In production, a hypothetical line that separates items that will be executed and publicized, versus items that will be cut.

(journalism, broadcasting) A caption under a photograph, or more narrowly just the explanatory text block under a photograph, excluding the title.


Augustan

From the Latin Augustānus, from Augustus, a Roman emperor who ruled a period of peace and prosperity known as the Pax Romana or Pax Augusta.

(literature) Pertaining to the Roman poetic literature during this time.

Jonathan Swift was an Augustan writer.

(literature) Pertaining to the period of English literature during the first half of the 18th century, known for satire and political themes.

augustuslainen

relating to the era in English literature


nuk

(comics) The sound of a pacifier being suckled on.


biokinesis

(parapsychology, science fiction) The ability, through the use of psychic power, to affect organic matter on a microscopic level, to manipulate the physiology (e.g. heart rate, breathing, nervous system or brainwaves) and voluntary motor functions of other people or living organisms, inducing processes such as accelerated healing, etc.


transdimensional

en-adj

transdimensional (comparative more transdimensional, superlative most transdimensional)

more transdimensional (comparative)
most transdimensional (superlative)

A concentrated hyperplasma of Energon, drawn via a transdimensional gateway from the endless supply of Energon that enlivened the planet Cybertron itself.

2010, Alexander Christian Irvine, Exodus: The Official History of the War for Cybertron, Titan, →ISBN, page 198:

(science fiction) Relating to a dimension other than those of the normal three-dimensional world.


SMT

en-noun

SMT (countable and uncountable, plural SMTs)

(broadcasting) Initialism of satellite media tour.


midline

(typography) The level of the top of the x-height of a typeface.


dele

en-verb

dele (third-person singular simple present deles, present participle deleing, simple past and past participle deled)

deles (present singular third-person)
deleing (participle present)
deled (participle past)
deled (past)

From Latin dēlē, second person singular imperative of dēleo (“delete”). Alternatively, a clipping of deleatur.

(printing, usually imperative) To delete.


fitter

For the fitter of film music in the silent era visual reference was the surest indicator of content.

2012, Stephen Neale, The Classical Hollywood Reader, page 268:

(film, historical) A person employed to find suitable music to accompany silent films.


kenning

A learned borrowing from Old Norse kenning, from kenna (“to know; to perceive”), from Proto-Germanic *kannijaną (“to make known”); see further at etymology 1. Compare can, keen, ken.

der

[A]s we are all aware, the Skalds used all sorts of kennings from Jewels, Gold, Silver, &c., to betoken Women, &c. Gold is called "The Sea's Blink (Blik)", and so on, and a female is "Gold's Mistress", "The Goddess of the Golden Jewel", and so forth.

1867–1868, George Stephens, “Bracteates”, in The Old-Northern Runic Monuments of Scandinavia and England, Now First Collected and Deciphered, volume II, London: John Russell Smith; Copenhagen: Michaelsen and Tillge; printed by H. H. Thiele, →OCLC, pages 509–510:

I venture to say that a close study of the style of Piers Plowman would thoroughly dispose of alliteration as chief factor in the kenning-process.

1887 January, Francis B. Gummere, “Wilhelm Bode: Die Kenningar in der angelsächsen Dichtung. Mit Ausblicken auf andere Litteraturen. Darmstadt und Leipzig, 1886. [Strasburg Dissertation].”, in A. Marshall Elliott, editor, Modern Language Notes, volume II, number 1, Baltimore, Md.: [Johns Hopkins Press], →ISSN, →OCLC, column 36:

If we now move to the second helmingr, Kock tries to unscramble the two kenningar[…], but this is over-zealous, since there are ample parallels for such braiding of kenning elements. Finnbogi interprets the kenning 'ǫrbeiðanda bǫðvar jǫkla' contextually, to mean 'the one who provoked the warrior into drawing his sword' (Orkneyinga saga, 202).

2006, Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, Turnhout, Antwerp, Belgium: Brepols, →OCLC, page 149:

The original also makes frequent use of the circumlocutory type of poetic expression known as the kenning, which consists (in its simplest form) of a base-word (always a noun, sometimes the second of the two elements in a compound word) accompanied by a determinant (either a noun in the genitive or, in the case of a compound-word kenning, the first of the compound's two elements).

2007, Andrew Wawn with Graham Johnson and John Walter, editors, Constructing Nations, Reconstructing Myth: Essays in Honour of T. A. Shippey (Making in the Middle Ages; 9), Turnhout, Antwerp, Belgium: Brepols, →ISBN, page 172:

(poetry) A metaphorical compound or phrase, used especially in Germanic poetry (Old English or Old Norse) whereby a simple thing is described in an allusive way.

kenning

metaphorical phrase used in Germanic poetry


coryphée

Borrowed from French coryphée, from Latin coryphaeus, from Ancient Greek κορυφαῖος (koruphaîos, “leader of the chorus in an Ancient Greek drama”), from κορῠφή (korŭphḗ, “top of the head, crown”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱerh₂- (“head, top; horn”)) + -ῐος (-ĭos, suffix forming adjectives meaning ‘belonging to, pertaining to’).

The piece [...] contains a passage for men's voices marked "Les Travailleurs," topped by a tenor solo (in alto clef) marked "Coryphée," a term originally meaning leader of the chorus, as in a Greek tragedy. [...] [T]he aforementioned "Coryphée" line grows out of a recitative for first tenor.

1986, Ralph P. Locke, “The Rue Monsigny and Salle Taitbout: Music in the Formative Years”, in Music, Musicians and the Saint-Simonians, Chicago, Ill., London: University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, part 3 (Practice), page 86:

Two coryphées, or coryphæi, the term for the leader of a Greek chorus, were stationed in towers on either side of the stage. A device borrowed from Léon Chancerel's Mission de Jeanne d'Arc, the coryphées are present for the entire length of the drama. Like the messenger, they commented upon the action in a Manichean dialogue: one cheering on Joan of Arc, the other deriding her.

2013, Lucie Kayas, Christopher Brent Murray, “Olivier Messiaen and Portique pour une fille de France”, in Christopher Dingle, Robert Fallon, editors, Messiaen Perspectives, Farnham, Surrey, Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, →ISBN; republished volumes 1 (Sources and Influences), Abingdon, Oxfordshire, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2016, →ISBN, page 52:

(Ancient Greece, drama, historical) The conductor or leader of the chorus of a drama.


mara

Borrowed from Old Norse mara, from Proto-Germanic *marǭ, cognate with Old English mare or mære. Doublet of mare. See nightmare.

The corpus of related texts tells us that within rural society it was not improbable for your neighbour's envy of your fine cattle to take the form of a mara.

1996, Catharina Raudvere, “Now you see her, now you don't: some notes on the conception of female shape-shifters in Scandinavian traditions”, in Sandra Billington, Miranda Green, editors, The Concept of the Goddess, pages 41–55:

(European folklore) A nightmare; a spectre or wraith-like creature in Germanic and particularly Scandinavian folklore; a female demon who torments people in sleep by crouching on their chests or stomachs, or by causing terrifying visions.

խիպիլիկ

(folklore) a nightmare; spectre or wraith-like creature


puker

(broadcasting, slang) A person who caricatures the manner of speech of a disc jockey or announcer, using affected, back-of-the-throat speech that is likened to puking.


barney

Etymology unknown. Often incorrectly thought to be Cockney rhyming slang from Barney Rubble (“trouble”, from the character Barney Rubble on The Flintstones), it actually dates back to the 19th century and its origin is unknown.

unk

Etymology unknown

You can create your own blimp or barney with anything that will deaden the camera noise, such as a changing bag, foam rubber, […]

2015, Peter W. Rea, David K. Irving, Producing and Directing the Short Film and Video, page 209:

(film, television) Synonym of blimp (“soundproof cover for a video camera”)


sound stage

Coordinate term: silent stage

Filmed entirely on a sound stage, with the exception of a single cutaway exterior shot (reproduced exactly in the Swedish version) , the film has all the earmarks of the "canned theatre" style: minimal camera movement[…]

1992, Robert B. Altman, Sound Theory, Sound Practice, Psychology Press, →ISBN, page 145:

(film, television) A soundproof room or building used for the production of movies or of television programmes.


OOV

(broadcasting) An item in a television (especially news) broadcast consisting of pictures alone, to be played on screen while the presenter continues to talk out of vision and provide commentary.


dipody

From di- + -pody, from Ancient Greek δι- (di-, “two”) and πούς, ποδός (poús, podós, “foot”).


set out

en-verb

set out (third-person singular simple present sets out, present participle setting out, simple past and past participle set out)

sets out (present singular third-person)
setting out (participle present)
set out (participle past)
set out (past)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-set out.wav

(transitive, obsolete, printing) To arrange the necessary type into a printing press in preparation to run it.


costar

The once famous actor objected to his costar having a bigger dressing room.

(acting) a person who shares star billing

Alas, always a costar but never a star.

(acting) a person who slightly lacks the status to be considered a star


blanking

en-noun

blanking (countable and uncountable, plural blankings)

Thus during each blanking, a line pattern of charges is read into the horizontal register in parallel.

2001, A. M. Dhake, TV and Video Engineering, page 73:

(television) The reduction of the brightness of the scanning beam to zero when it needs to be moved without updating the picture.


camel case

From camel + case, from a fancied resemblance to the appearance of the humps of a two-humped camel.

Near-synonyms: intercapping, InterCapping, intercaps, InterCaps

(typography, often used in programming) The style of writing by concatenating multiple component words (i.e. writing without any space between them), while capitalizing the first letter of each word, starting with the first or the second word.


back projection

back projection (countable and uncountable, plural back projections)

Coordinate term: back projection

(film) A cinematic technique in which live action is filmed in front of a screen on which the background action or a background scene is projected.


telecine

telecine (countable and uncountable, plural telecines)

(film) The process of transferring motion picture film into electronic form.


rotoscope

(film, television, visual effects) A technique in which animators trace live-action movement frame by frame.


set off

en-verb

set off (third-person singular simple present sets off, present participle setting off, simple past and past participle set off)

sets off (present singular third-person)
setting off (participle present)
set off (participle past)
set off (past)

(printing, historical) To deface or soil the next sheet; said of the ink on a freshly printed sheet, when another sheet comes in contact with it before it has had time to dry.


blackface

en-noun

blackface (countable and uncountable, plural blackfaces)

The laboratory procedure in the most important tests and methods is printed in blackface type for convenience of reference.

1917, Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, Journal - Franklin Institute of the State of Pennsylvania, →OCLC:

(uncountable, countable, typography) Synonym of boldface.


ecumenopolis

ecumenopolis (plural ecumenopolises or ecumenopoleis or ecumenopoli)

ecumenopolises (plural)
ecumenopoleis (plural)
ecumenopoli (plural)

From ecumene (“inhabited world”) + -polis (“city”).
From use as a common noun of Ecumenopolis, applying the concept to diverse scenarios.

suffix

(chiefly science fiction) A city spanning an entire planet or large moon.


soapy

en-adj

soapy (comparative soapier, superlative soapiest)

soapier (comparative)
soapiest (superlative)

From soap + -y. Compare German Low German sepig (“soapy”), German seifig (“soapy”), Swedish såpig (“soapy”).

The heightened worlds of darkly comedic satire and soapy high-school romance make it easy enough to roll with unrealistic casting choices—and that goes for stage musicals, too, where some level of artifice is built into the format.

2021 September 22, Caroline Siede, “Dear Evan Hansen is a misfire on just about every level”, in AV Club:

This Diana-obsessed series is the very definition of bad writing. Despite the brilliant cast, it’s a crass, soapy dive into the abyss – not least in the atrocious scenes featuring Ghost Diana[.]

2023 November 16, Lucy Mangan, “The Crown season 6 review – so bad it’s basically an out-of-body experience”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:


lock up

en-verb

lock up (third-person singular simple present locks up, present participle locking up, simple past and past participle locked up)

locks up (present singular third-person)
locking up (participle present)
locked up (participle past)
locked up (past)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-lock up.wav

(obsolete, printing) To fasten quoins securely with a mallet and a shooting-stick.


diegetic

/ˌdaɪəˈd͡ʒɛtɪk/

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek διηγητικός (diēgētikós).

lbor

(fiction) Existing within a fictional universe (rather than as background), and able to be perceived by the characters.


fleuron

From Old French floron (“flower”), spelling later changed to match modern French fleuron.

Fleurons include ❦, 🙐, 🙘, 🙠, 🙨, ☘, 🙬, 🕊, ✾, 𐡷, 𐫱.

(typography) A decorative typographic element, used to separate passages or simply for decoration. Often doubled, e.g. 🙚 🙘 or 🙘🙚, or combined with other fleurons into a short line.


overprint

en-verb

overprint (third-person singular simple present overprints, present participle overprinting, simple past and past participle overprinted)

overprints (present singular third-person)
overprinting (participle present)
overprinted (participle past)
overprinted (past)

/ˈəʊvə(ɹ)ˌpɹɪnt/

/ˌəʊvə(ɹ)ˈpɹɪnt/

(printing) To overlap different colours to avoid gaps.


wingding

After the Wingdings font developed by Microsoft in 1990. Its name was presumably derived from dingbat and earlier senses of wingding.

Instead of going through the menu selections needed to insert a special symbol like a Wingding, you can rely on AutoCorrect to substitute the symbol for the text you type […]

2004, Mary Millhollon, Katherine Murray, Microsoft Office Word 2003 Inside Out, page 202:

Don't know a wingding from a ring-a-ding-ding? Check out one of the For Dummies books on Microsoft Office.

2011, Suzanne Gilad, Copyediting and Proofreading For Dummies, page 179:

(computing, typography) A dingbat (ornamental typographical symbol), especially one from the Wingdings font.


keep down

keep down (third-person singular simple present keeps down, present participle keeping down, simple past and past participle kept down)

keeps down (present singular third-person)
keeping down (participle present)
kept down (participle past)
kept down (past)

(obsolete, printing) To refrain from using capital letters more than absolutely necessary.


set piece

What’s so great about the episode is it takes its time. The first 30 minutes of this 79-minute behemoth—a model for season eight’s reportedly extended run-times—are a single set piece, the big parlay in the Dragon Pit at King’s Landing.

2017 August 27, Brandon Nowalk, “Game Of Thrones slows down for the longest, and best, episode of the season (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club:

The message is that Hynkel is not a brilliant strategist or a mighty leader. He is an overgrown adolescent – as demonstrated in the sublime set piece in which he dances with an inflatable globe, dreaming of being "emperor of the world".

2021 February 5, Nicholas Barber, “The Great Dictator: The film that dared to laugh at Hitler”, in BBC:

(film, video games) An elaborate and interesting scene in a movie or video game, usually the most important and visually iconic scene in the work.


duple

PIE word
 *dwóh₁
From Latin duplus (“twofold, double”). Attested since the 16th century. Doublet of double and doppio.

McGonagall is earnestly trying to gather the resources of a metrical tradition, not subvert it, but the mismatch of duple and triple measure in the first line alone means that, while it’s made of recognisable metrical feet, the line doesn’t feel like it belongs to any specific metrical pattern (iambic, dactylic, anapestic etc) or mode (pastoral, elegy or ballad).

2015, Ben Lerner, “Diary”, in London Review of Books, volume 38, number 12:


multidimensional

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(science fiction, New Age religion) a being that exists in more than one dimension


lookup table

(cinematography, specifically) A color filter.


Tarzan

Coined by Edgar Rice Burroughs. A name created by Burroughs for his fiction.
Means "white skin" in the apes' fictional language; possibly echoic in its phonetics of various "exotic" names (see Orientalism).

(fiction) A heroic fictional character, raised in the jungle by apes.


adjacency

en-noun

adjacency (countable and uncountable, plural adjacencies)

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The maker of film commercials should be especially aware of the film standards published by the networks and adhere to them carefully, as the effectiveness of his commercial is greatly affected by its adjacencies. He may well give serious thought in his production planning to the problem caused by adjacent film which, in most cases, will not be under his control.

2023, H. W. Coleman, Colour Television: Techniques, Business, Impact:

(broadcasting) The programming directly before or after a commercial.


SDR

SDR (countable and uncountable, plural SDRs)

(television, retronym) Initialism of standard dynamic range.


oddment

(printing) A part of a book that is not a portion of the text, such as the title, index, etc. (usually plural).


italicized

Claire, however, sat looking profoundly unamused by her family’s spirited, italicized conversations.

1991, Douglas Coupland, “It Can't Last”, in Generation X, New York: St. Martin's Press, →OCLC, page 34:


evening wrap

(television) The last of a series of news programmes broadcast in the evening.


direct cut

(film) A film punctuation in which there is a direct instantaneous transition between one scene and the next.


imposition

imposition (countable and uncountable, plural impositions)

From Middle English imposicioun, from Old French imposicion, from Latin impositio.

(printing) Arrangement of a printed product’s pages on the printer's sheet so as to have the pages in proper order in the final product.


dubbing

dubbing (countable and uncountable, plural dubbings)

New genres are thus emerging as a consequence of foreign text dubbings (and subtitlings). Some original cartoons and films are also based on dubbings of foreign cartoons and films.

2013, Carmen Millan-Varela, Francesca Bartrina, The Routledge Handbook of Translation Studies:

(film) The replacement of a voice part in a film or animation, particularly with a translation, revoicing.

(film) The process in which additional or supplementary recordings are "mixed" with original production sound to create the finished soundtrack.

jälkiäänitys

process of mixing additional voice material to a film


duodecimo

Latin ablative of duodecimus (“twelfth”) (from duodecim 'twelve', from duo 'two' + decem 'ten')

(paper, printing) A size of paper, so called because it is originally made by folding and cutting a single sheet from a printing press into 12 leaves; (5 by 7¾ inches): 6.5 to 7.5 inches high, approximately 4.5 inches wide.

In recent years, I have taken to reading while walking. I believe the Romantics were guilty of such behavior; a duodecimo was small enough to fit into a jacket pocket.

2015, William Logan, “A Critics Notebook”, in Guilty Knowledge, Guilty Pleasure, page 304:

(printing) A book having pages of that size.


coryphaeus

coryphaeus (plural coryphaeuses or coryphaei)

coryphaeuses (plural)
coryphaei (plural)

/ˌkɔɹəˈfiːəs/

/ˌkɒɹɪˈfiːʌs/

Borrowed from Latin coryphaeus, from Ancient Greek κορυφαῖος (koruphaîos, “leader of the chorus in an Ancient Greek drama”), from κορυφή (koruphḗ, “top of the head, crown”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱerh₂- (“head, top; horn”)) + -ῐος (-ĭos, suffix forming adjectives meaning ‘belonging to, pertaining to’).

der

Then the coryphæus finishes the remaining part of the strophe. But when they have returned to order, Bacchus again interposes by beginning the antistrophe β', which the coryphæus ought to have done.

1830, Gottfried Hermann, Gottfried Hermann, translated by John Seager, Hermann's Elements of the Doctrine of Metres, page 165:

The chorus, that is those members of the komos who have not become specialized as actors and continue singing and dancing, are headed by a coryphaeus, who sometimes addresses them, exhorting them to action, or to begin the song or the rite, or else anticipates or summarizes their words, or represents them in conversation with the actors.

1975, Francisco Rodríguez Adrados, “Festival, Comedy and Tragedy: The Greek Origins of Theatre”, in Christopher Holme, transl., [1972, Festia, Comedia y Tragedia], page 250:

Post-classical references to the famous ‘chorus-trainer’ Sannio indicate that his role extended to performing and thus taking the coryphaeus role. The coryphaeus was both leader and teacher, and in performance played a crucial role in setting the time that the other dancers followed.

2000, David Wiles, Greek Theatre Performance: An Introduction, page 135:

(Ancient Greece, drama, historical) The conductor or leader of the chorus of a drama.


cauchemar

(folklore) A demon or witch in French folklore that drains a sleeping person's energy by night.


flitter

Then all three went out to the flitter. A tiny speedster, really; a torpedo bearing stubby wings and the ludicrous tail-surfaces, the multifarious driving-, braking-, side-, top-, and under-jets so characteristic of the tricky, cranky, but ultra-maneuverable breed.

1941 July, Edward Elmer Smith, “The Vortex Blaster”, in Comet Stories, volume 1, number 5, page 10:

Small flitters were powered and made ready, and everything that carried manual controls was inspected and cleared for action.

1944 March, George Oliver Smith, “Circle of Confusion”, in Astounding Science Fiction, volume 33, number 1, page 54:

The small flitters carried by the Queen for exploration work held with comfort a two-man crew—with crowding, three.

1955, Alice Mary Norton (as Andrew North), Sargasso of Space, page 53:

The flitter tumbled from the shimmering throat of the wormhole transit route from Port Sol to Earthport.

1994, Stephen Baxter, Ring, →ISBN, page 43:

(science fiction) A small aircraft or spacecraft.


line feed

(typography) On a typewriter, the action of the carriage roller to push the page up one or more lines, often simultaneously with executing a carriage return.

It appears that Director Chalmers was the only one who, while reading the final draft, noticed that the wording of one clause required the Post Office to provide a line feed to each station.

1964, Ian K. Mackay, Broadcasting in Nigeria, page 30:

Playing a “gig” in Toronto at the time, Lombardo and his boys arrived at RB to do a live line feed to New York for their regular dance-band series on CBS, just at a mement when Baker's one and only amplifier was in full use on CFRB's own air, broadcasting a lucrative locally-sponsored program of recorded music.

2003, Gil Murray, Nothing On But the Radio, page 33:

The edited output of the picture is then sent out as the “line feed."

2017, Ivan Cury, Directing and Producing for Television, page 281:

(broadcasting) A signal that contains the content about to be broadcast on radio or television.


line feed

en-verb

line feed (third-person singular simple present line feeds, present participle line feeding, simple past and past participle line fed)

line feeds (present singular third-person)
line feeding (participle present)
line fed (participle past)
line fed (past)

(typography) To advance the page one line at a time, particularly in rapid succession.


hot metal

A Fleet Street veteran of the hot-metal days, he had moved to the Mediterranean and spotted an anglophone niche among the marinas and yacht brokers.

2000, JG Ballard, Super-Cannes, Fourth Estate, published 2011, page 127:

In the mid-80s, most British newspapers were still produced using hot metal, despite the widespread use elsewhere of modern offset litho technology.

2011 July 27, Jon Henley, “Rupert Murdoch and the battle of Wapping: 25 years on”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

hot metal typesetting
hot metal typesetting

(printing) Printing type cast from molten metal; hot metal typesetting.


headband

From Middle English *hedband, from Old English hēafodbænd, hēafodbend (“headband”), equivalent to head + band. Cognate with Old High German houbitbant (“headband”), Dutch hoofdband (“headband”).

(printing) A thin slip of iron on the tympan of a printing-press.


cheating

en-noun

cheating (countable and uncountable, plural cheatings)

Cheating is the sixth C of Cinematography ... it is the art of arranging people, objects or actions, during filming or editing

1965, Joseph V. Mascelli, The Five C’s of Cinematography:

(cinematography) The arrangement of people or items in a film so as to give the (false) impression that shots are taken from different angles in the same location.


DTR

(television) Initialism of digital terrestrial receiver.


kavya

(poetry) A highly artificial Sanskrit literary style used by Indian court poets in the early centuries AD.


synth

(science fiction) A synthetic humanoid, an android, a robot, a clone


improvisatore

improvisatore (plural improvisatores or improvisatori)

improvisatores (plural)
improvisatori (plural)

Coordinate term: improvisatrice

There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine.

1842, Edgar Allan Poe, The Masque of the Red Death:

(poetry) An individual who recites impromptu verse, as from a song or poem.


dramatic beat

(theater, film) The smallest division of action in a play, film or other work of drama; The moment at which increasing dramatic tension produces a noticeable change in the consciousness of one or more characters.


descender

Coordinate term: ascender

(typography) The part of a letter or number that is drawn below the baseline (the bottom of most lowercase letters).

Coordinate term: ascender

(typography, uncommon) A letter that has such a portion, such as g, j, or in some fonts Q.


underprint

en-adj

underprint (comparative more underprint, superlative most underprint)

more underprint (comparative)
most underprint (superlative)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-underprint.wav

(printing) The addition of colour under black areas to produce a deeper black and prevent oversaturation of the paper.


distributor

(printing, historical) A machine for distributing type.

(printing, historical) An appliance, such as a roller, in a printing press, for distributing ink.


nanite

I had the nanites install the brackets, then climbed up there with the panels, placed them on the brackets, and had the nanites secure them.

2017, Stephanie C. Fox, New World Order Underwater, page 76:

Disperse into a cloud of nanites.

2021 August 11, Thomas Happ, Axiom Verge 2, Nintendo Switch, description for Tilhar

"Anyway," their guide continued, "he didn't know the first thing about tech. Pushed the team hard. We couldn't get a chemical solution that worked right, but nanites showed real promise."
"You're joking." Quinn didn't even try to keep the horror from her voice.
"Memory-altering nanite clouds?" Tonya growled. "What did they call this, Project Grey Goo? That's wildly irresponsible."

2023 June 25, HarryBlank, “Transposthumousism”, in SCP Foundation, archived from the original on 2024-12-18:


redcap

From red + cap.
In sense of "porter", 1890s US; compare contemporary Japanese 赤帽 (akabou), Chinese 小紅帽 /小红帽 (Xiǎo Hóng Mào). On Labor Day, 1890, John Williams, an African-American railway porter, tied a red ribbon to his black uniform cap to stand out from the crowd at Grand Central Terminal. The strategy was so successful that it was soon adopted by others in the profession, leading to the synecdochic use of redcap as a term for all railway porters.

1876: Porter & Coates (pub.), Reliques of Ancient English Poetry
Lord Soulis he sat in Hermitage Castle,
And beside him Old Redcap sly; —
"Now, tell me, thou sprite, who are meikle of might,
The death that I must die?"

"What's a Brownie?" you say. Oh, it's a kind of a sort of a Bogle, but it isn't so cruel as a Redcap! What! you don't know what's a Bogle or a Redcap!

1890, Joseph Jacobs, English Fairy Tales:

[…] the goblin had aroused the mercenary's ire. This seemed to bring out a formidable and hitherto unrecognized talent in the taciturn young man.
"Why cam' ye by my door?" The redcap brandished his pikestaff menacingly.
Redcap - A malevolent goblin easily distinguishable by their namesake red cap, fiery red eyes, claws and iron boots. They often appear as little old men, but can run very fast despite the boots. They reside in castles and watchtowers along the English-Scottish border, but will move their residence to avoid detection. They have sharp eagle’s talons which they use for weapons, but can easily be repelled simply by reading holy verse. http://www.vf11.com/legendsofvalhal/legendsofvalhal-post-814.html

2002, Cecilia Dart-Thornton, The Ill-Made Mute: The Bitterbynde:

After boggarts, they studied Red Caps, nasty little goblinlike creatures that lurked where there had been bloodshed […]

1999 July 8, J. K. Rowling [pseudonym; Joanne Rowling], Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter; 3), London: Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN:

(British, folklore) A type of evil goblin or imp.


honey wagon

(film, television) A type of multi-room trailer with toilet facilities for use by film and television crews.


apologetic apostrophe

en-noun

apologetic apostrophe (plural apologetic apostrophes)

While not all agreements were carried out as planned, what this attempt at consistency achieved in Smith's case was to give his poetry the appearance of a distinctive literary language, related to English, but having its own identity and forms, and without the distraction for the reader of the apologetic apostrophes.

2009, Margery Palmer McCulloch, Scottish Modernism and Its Contexts 1918-1959:

(sociolinguistics, orthography) An apostrophe added to a Scots word in order to give the appearance that it is a contraction of an English word.


reality television

Live, Reality Television

1991, Fred D'Ignazio, "D'Iversions", COMPUTE, November 1991, COMPUTE Publications, page G–22

television programming
television program

(television) A genre of television programming portraying one or more people who are not professional actors and depicting their reactions to given stimuli or goals.


No, the slightest imbalance there would have alarms flashing all over the room. Probably it was the fact that he knew the threedee was a little out of whack.

1969, Dave Van Arnam, Starmind, New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, page 14:

(science fiction) A system capable of recording or displaying three-dimensional video.

A man Ellaby's own size was sitting there, viewing a 3D. When he heard Ellaby at the door he got up.

1955 January, Martin Lesser, “The Dictator”, in Imagination, volume 6, number 1, page 85:

(science fiction) A three-dimensional video.


hard matte

(cinematography) A technique where the top and bottom of the film frame are masked off in camera, as opposed to soft matte.


closed matte

a closed matte DVD

(film) Of a soft matte film, transferred to a home video format, especially DVD, with the theatrical mattes intact.


soft matte

(cinematography) A technique where the full frame is filled, and the projectionist is relied upon to matte out the top and bottom of the frame in the theatrical projector.


open matte

an open matte DVD

(film) Of a soft matte film, transferred to a home video format with the full frame exposed, thus having the theatrical mattes removed.


ice bucket

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-ice bucket.wav

(science fiction, slang, humorous) A pod or similar device containing a person in cryosleep.


pre-production

pre-production (countable and uncountable, plural pre-productions)

desc

препрода́кшен

→ Russian: препрода́кшен (preprodákšen)

(cinematography) The process of preparing the elements involved in a motion picture, theatrical play, or other performance.


neorealist

en-adj

neorealist (comparative more neorealist, superlative most neorealist)

more neorealist (comparative)
most neorealist (superlative)

(film) Of or pertaining to the post-World War II Italian movement of neorealism, which focused on realistic portrayals of daily life


plucking

en-noun

plucking (countable and uncountable, plural pluckings)

Letterpress and offset gloss varnishes normally have viscosities varying from 50 to 250 poises; they must stain the paper as little as possible, have insufficient tack to cause plucking, […]

1959, E. A. Apps, Printing Ink Technology, page 415:

(printing) The undesirable situation in which printed ink becomes detached from the paper.


MOTD

55 years in, save for the odd hiatus when ITV rather rudely claimed the exclusive top-flight highlights rights, MOTD represents the then, now and seemingly forever for the free-to-air armchair football fan.

2019 July 26, Adam Hurrey, “55 years in, the culturally bulletproof Match of the Day can handle the latest threat from its rivals”, in The Daily Telegraph:

(sports, television) Initialism of Match of the Day: a British football-themed television programme introduced in 1964.


deleted scene

(cinematography) A scene removed from, or replaced by another scene in, the final version of a motion picture or television program episode.


director's cut

(film) A specially edited version of a piece of media, especially a film, that is supposed to represent the director's own approved edit of the media, and is released some time after the original release of the media.


greenscreen

greenscreen (countable and uncountable, plural greenscreens)

(film) The alternate version of bluescreen, having the background green instead of blue.


money shot

(moment in film): So named because it is often considered the most important part of the film, and often an actor who is unable to provide the shot goes unpaid.

Allen Gregory DeLongpre: Uh-oh, Principal Gottlieb. Looks like somebody forgot their danish, huh?
Judith Gottlieb: Aw, crap.
Allen Gregory: Three, two, one, and there's the money shot.

2011 Allen Gregory, "1 Night in Gottlieb" (season 1, episode 2)

(pornography, slang) The moment in a pornographic film where the male subject of the scene in question ejaculates.

(pornography, slang, by extension) The release of semen on the partner's body, especially on the face or in the eye.


angle bracket

Any of a number of angle-shaped brackets.

(typography, mathematics) Either of a pair of symbols, ⟨ ⟩, used to enclose text in various technical contexts, and in mathematical formulas to denote an interval, a continuous parameter or an inner product.

(typography) Either of a pair of symbols, 〈 〉, used in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean punctuation.


slipstream

slipstream (countable and uncountable, plural slipstreams)

Compound of slip + stream. Fiction sense coined by cyberpunk author Bruce Sterling in 1989.

coin

Coordinate term: New Weird

Slipstream is not simply a mixture of fantasy and realism, but something which lies between or even beyond the two.

2000, Damien Broderick, quoting Justina Robson and Rozanne Rabinowitz, Transrealist Fiction: Writing in the Slipstream of Science, Greenwood Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 88:

(uncountable, fiction) A genre of fantastic or non-realistic fiction that crosses conventional genre boundaries.


presser

From press (“press release/press conference”) + -er (Variety “-er”).

suffix

At the presser, [Scott] Morrison confirmed that the petrol tax of 22 cents a litre will go back to 44 cents after six months despite prices nudging $2 a litre again; […]

2022 May 18, Paul Karp, “Australian election briefing: Scott Morrison bulldozes a kid while Anthony Albanese takes the stage”, in The Guardian:

A statement will be issued. We'll do a presser this aftern—

2022, Liam McIlvanney, The Heretic, page 117:

(media, informal) A press conference or press briefing.


MCS

(television) Initialism of medium close shot.


Augustin

From French Saint-Augustin (“14-point type”).

(printing, French contexts, dated) Synonym of English.


strikeover

(printing) Strikeover or strikeout text, i.e., fonts where each letter appears to be "crossed out".


colour bar

(printing) A pattern of varying tonal density that enables visual and numeric comparisons to be made across multiple printed sheets or pages.


scenarist

What was acted out in the American and French Revolutions had been thought out beforehand in the writings of Locke and Rousseau, the scenarists for the drama of modern politics.

1987, Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students:

(cinematography) A writer of screenplays; a screenwriter.


cast off

en-verb

cast off (third-person singular simple present casts off, present participle casting off, simple past cast off or casted off, past participle cast off)

casts off (present singular third-person)
casting off (participle present)
cast off (past)
casted off (past)
cast off (participle past)

To conserve type, copy was "cast off"; that is, type needed for the initial pages was estimated so that the pages need not be composed in the same sequence as the copy.

2012, Christa Jansohn, Problems of Editing, page 102:

(printing, historical) To estimate the amount of space required by the type used for the given copy.


screen test

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-screen test.wav

Alan Ladd's wife spotted the budding beauty and suggested that Julie attend a screen test for a bit part in something called The Girl and the Gorilla.

1990, Wayne Jancik, The Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders, →ISBN, page 10:

(film) A filmed audition to test (and demonstrate) an actor's screen-acting ability and/or suitability for a particular role.


warbird

(science fiction) A heavily-armed starship.


shapeshifter

/ˈʃeɪpʃɪftə/

The shapeshifter Lisa Bowalk, unable to shed the guise of a black panther, had gone onto the plain as a prisoner but was not now to be found among the dead above or the Captured down below.

Like the teller of shapeshifter stories—who conjures a shifting world of perceptions and expectations for his or her audience that is strikingly similar to the worlds created by the shapeshifter for its victims—the cultural practice of imagination...is an inherently shifty enterprise....

2003, Michael Bathgate, The Fox's Craft in Japanese Religion and Folklore: Shapeshifters, Transformations and Duplicities:

There have also been verified reports of fire-starters and ice-makers and a shapeshifter so powerful she was able to frame another Smallville citizen for a bank robbery!

Granted, Grace is talking about actual transformation, but she's a shapeshifter. For her, growing a couple inches taller is like an alternative to wearing high heels.

2015 January 30, Dan Shive, “Comic for Friday, Jan 30, 2015”, in El Goonish Shive - EGS:NP, archived from the original on 2022-08-13:

(fantasy, mythology, science fiction) A person or creature capable of changing their appearance or form at will.

canviaformes

creature capable of changing its appearance


wraparound host

en-noun

wraparound host (plural wraparound hosts)

(television) A host or hostess who appears in very short segments before and after a television show.


funnies

And I'm turning to the horoscope and looking for the funnies / When I'm feeling someone watching me and so I raise my head

1987, “Tom's Diner”, in Suzanne Vega (lyrics), Solitude Standing:

(comics) The section of a newspaper containing comic strips.


sandpit

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-sandpit.wav

From Middle English sandpitte, sandpette, sandpütte, from Old English sandpytt (“sandpit”), equivalent to sand + pit.

Originally designed to illustrate Kuwait and the oil pipelines, the 'sandpit', based on maps and photographs to a scale of 1:1,000,000, was extended to include other countries.

1991, British Broadcasting Corporation, “The Annual Report & Accounts”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name):

[…] the commentaries on the battle given by Peter Snow with the aid of a model of the theatre of war, known as the 'Sandpit'.

1992, Richard Hamilton, Simon Wilson, “Richard Hamilton: 17 June - 6 September 1992, Tate Gallery”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name):

[…] a conflict that did not fit so easily into the television studios, with their super-patriotic anchormen, their verbose ex-generals, their model tanks and their bloodless sandpits.

2005, Robert Fisk, “The Great War for civilisation: the conquest of the Middle East”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name):

(television) A small-scale illustrative model of the theater of war in the Middle East.


backhaul

backhaul (countable and uncountable, plural backhauls)

(broadcasting) Uncut program content that is transmitted point-to-point to an individual television or radio station, network or other receiving entity where it will be integrated into a finished show.


tracking

tracking (countable and uncountable, plural trackings)

(typography) A consistent adjustment of space between individual letters; letterspacing.


spacing

spacing (countable and uncountable, plural spacings)

He was a laconic old soul who loved spacing only a jot better than he loved Martian alky.

1949 February 14, Alfred Coppel, “Runaway”, in Planet Stories, volume 4, number 2 (Spring):

(science fiction) The activity of working or living in outer space; the occupation of a spacer.


deathless

en-adj

deathless (comparative more deathless, superlative most deathless)

more deathless (comparative)
most deathless (superlative)

Her novels are filled with unforgettable characters and deathless prose.

"We cannot do less than call it Ixodes Maloni. The very small inconvenience of being bitten, my young friend, cannot, I am sure, weigh with you as against the glorious privilege of having your name inscribed in the deathless roll of zoology."

1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:

Finally, one voice in England proclaimed him a deathless dramatist and portrayer of character (Morgann) (<422).

2000, Jacques Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence, HarperCollins, →ISBN, page 516:

(of a work of art, literature, etc.) Guaranteed not to be lost or forgotten due to its importance or conspicuous excellence.


stop list

(media) A list of people who subscribed to a publication (e.g. newspaper) but no longer wish to receive it.


humaniform

(science fiction, robotics) A robot resembling a human.


fairy dust

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-fairy dust.wav

Based on the story of the fictional character Peter Pan, see quotations.

Of course Peter had been trifling with them, for no one can fly unless the fairy dust has been blown on him.

1911, J[ames] M[atthew] Barrie, “Come away, Come away!”, in Peter and Wendy, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, page 54:

(fiction) A magical powder that would give the power of flight to whoever it was sprinkled on.


okurigana

(orthography) In the Japanese language, the kana which follow a stem written with kanji, which record how that stem is inflected, and guides recognition of the appropriate kun'yomi reading (word stem associated with the kanji); for example, く (ku) and かべる (kaberu) in 浮(う)く (uk-u, “to float”, intransitive) and 浮(う)かべる (uk-aberu, “to float”, transitive), or む (mu) and きる (kiru) in 生(う)む (umu, “to birth”) and 生(い)きる (ikiru, “to live”). Perhaps analogous to -st, -nd in English 1st (first), 2nd (second).


toss-up question

en-noun

toss-up question (plural toss-up questions)

(television, radio) During a classroom quiz or game show, a question posed to two or more opponents where both are able to answer by signaling, and depending on the rules, the one that responds with a correct answer either takes control of the game or proceeds to advance to a subsequent round.


box set

(film, television) A set with three walls, allowing the camera to film in a room-like space.


borganism

The word and concept are derived from The Borg, a race of cyborgs in the fictional Star Trek universe with a hive mind that operates as one.

(rare, idiomatic, science fiction, politics) Some forms of government.


black spot

I went down on my knees at once. On the floor close to his hand there was a little round of paper, blackened on the one side. I could not doubt that this was the black spot; and taking it up, I found written on the other side, in a very good, clear hand, this short message: “You have till ten to-night.”

1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC, part I (The Old Buccaneer), page 31:

(fiction) A fictional judicial device among pirates, consisting of a black circle indicating condemnation.


DSC

DSC (countable and uncountable, plural DSCs)

(nautical, radio telephony) Initialism of digital selective call, a feature that allows a VHF radio to call another VHF selectively (as opposed to a call that is repeated by all receivers that are on within the range of the caller).


negative cutter

negative cutter (plural negative cutters)

(film) A person whose profession is negative cutting and cuts and matches motion picture negatives using film splicers and film cement.


xenoarchaeology

(science fiction) A fictional science, concerned with the physical remains of alien cultures. These may be found on planets which have been inhabited or visited by extraterrestrials.


call sign

(broadcasting) A combination of letters and numbers used to identify a radio or television station.

رَمْز نِدَاء

(broadcasting) a combination of letters and numbers used to identify a radio or television statio


cold read

en-verb

cold read (third-person singular simple present cold reads, present participle cold reading, simple past and past participle cold read)

cold reads (present singular third-person)
cold reading (participle present)
cold read (participle past)
cold read (past)

At the audition you will be required to cold read a script.

(intransitive, transitive, acting, newsreading, education) To perform (a script) without preparation.


sign on

sign on (third-person singular simple present signs on, present participle signing on, simple past and past participle signed on)

signs on (present singular third-person)
signing on (participle present)
signed on (participle past)
signed on (past)

Years ago, the TV station would sign on at 5 a.m., but now it broadcasts 24 hours a day.

(broadcasting) To begin broadcasting a radio or television signal, usually at the beginning of a broadcasting day and after being off the air for several hours.


creampie

There was a recent post about Christy doing a creampie (internal cumshot). That never happened but the scene with Eric Edwards in this movie is close, as he cums on her puss.

1999 January 26, Stan Stewart, “help:christy letting a guy cum in her mouth”, in alt.fan.christy-canyon (Usenet):

[…] the “creampie” or “internal cum shot,” in which semen is photographed as it drips from a vagina (Cream Pie 1999).

2000, Michael Thomas Carroll, Popular Modernity in America: Experience, Technology, Mythohistory, Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, →ISBN, page 119:

Add new girl "Shannon" to the list of anal creampie girls--I did one with her last week for the January release of Knee Pad Nymphos, Vol 5.

2002 October 6, Dave Cummings, “Best Creampie Ever”, in rec.arts.movies.erotica (Usenet):

Alright, AFAB porn performers: we're all doubling our scene rates for creampie scenes, right?

2022 June 24, Siri Dahl, Twitter, archived from the original on 2022-12-15:

(pornography) Semen visibly displayed after ejaculation in the vagina or anus.


guest star

(television) An actor on a television program who stars in one, or a few, episodes.


dénouement

en-noun

dénouement (countable and uncountable, plural dénouements)

Unadapted borrowing from French dénouement (“resolution”, literally “unknotting”).

ubor

Emily was a great favourite with him; and he had always viewed the attachment, at whose dénouement between her and Lorraine, Lady Mandeville meant to preside, as a somewhat foolish romance.

1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XIX, in Romance and Reality. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 271:

At last this affair is moving towards the explosive dénouement he has been craving — the revelation, the release of tension, that will shake the universe in one fierce convulsion, and then allow everything to fall back into its rightful place, restored to normality!

2002, Michel Faber, The Crimson Petal and the White, Canongate Books (2010), page 830:

(authorship, often figuratively) The conclusion or resolution of a plot; unravelling.


presenter

master of ceremonies
master of ceremonies

(radio, television) Someone who presents a broadcast programme; a compere or master of ceremonies.

aanbieder

someone who presents a broadcast programme


Britcom

(informal, television) A British sitcom.


stage left

(acting) The area to the left of the stage when looking towards the audience.

näyttämövasen

area to the left (facing audience) of the stage


stage left

en-adv

stage left (comparative more stage left, superlative most stage left)

more stage left (comparative)
most stage left (superlative)


center stage

(acting) The area in the center of the stage, especially one towards the front.


stage right

He enters stage right.

(acting) The area to the right of the stage when looking towards the audience.

näyttämöoikea

area to the right (facing audience) of the stage


stage right

stage right (comparative more stage right, superlative most stage right)

more stage right (comparative)
most stage right (superlative)


letter to the editor

en-noun

letter to the editor (plural letters to the editor or letters to editors)

letters to the editor (plural)
letters to editors (plural)

The man wanted to show support for his choice for mayor by writing a letter to the editor.

(journalism) A letter written to a newspaper, magazine or other periodical, usually intended for publication, about issues of concern to readers.


ident

In 1999 Chaudoir and fellow BBC designer Tim Platt were given the task of rebranding the existing BBC2 idents.

(radio, television) A brief audio or audiovisual sequence serving to identify the broadcaster.


monkey boy

(derogatory, science fiction) Term of offense directed at male humans in general.


fac

If a Fac or Flowered letter be deeper than the Composing-stick we measure the exact width of it by Quotations, or common Quadrats; which we put into our Stick, and the Fac into the Galley, and then compose, and empty each time so many lines as our measure in the Stick will allow, till we have composed so many as reach something beyond the Depth of the Fac, that by justifying it up to the lines, its touching the letters underneath may be prevented.

1771, Philip Luckombe, The History and Art of Printing, page 385:

This combination of art and accident may be continued to any given length, as punches for letter-press may be formed of steel broken as above, by cutting, drilling, punching, bending (and all their varieties upon the same principle) parts of the letters and leaving the grain of the steel, &c. to form the lines or strokes, with all its accidental irregularities, and in this way title letters and two-line letters, facs, and complex founts of types, might be cast, every letter of which would vary in its lines from every other, and in larger letters a little art might be combin'd with accident so as to make the distinctions from all others obvious to a common observer.

1859, Robert Barclay, “A.D. 1790, July 26 -- No. 1766”, in Great Britain. Patent Office, editor, Patents for Invention, page 101:

The Fac Initial, a cheap substitute for the Pierced Initial, is made by combinations of small borders about an interior letter. As these borders are troublesome to construct and too often plainly show their joints, the Fac Initial is seldom made now.

1907, De Vinne Press, Types of the De Vinne Press, page 45:

(typography, rare) A factotum letter, or a similar kind of ornamentally bordered letter formerly used at the start of a chapter or section of a book.


photo-offset

photo-offset (countable and uncountable, plural photo-offsets)

(printing) A method of offset printing that uses photolithographic plates.


photo-offset

en-verb

photo-offset (third-person singular simple present photo-offsets, present participle photo-offsetting, simple past and past participle photo-offset)

photo-offsets (present singular third-person)
photo-offsetting (participle present)
photo-offset (participle past)
photo-offset (past)

(transitive, intransitive, printing) To print by this method.


haikai

en-noun

haikai (countable and uncountable, plural haikai)

Borrowed from Japanese 俳(はい)諧(かい) (haikai).

A form of Japanese comic verse, featuring satire and puns.


clapperboard

(film) A device used in film production, having hinged boards that are brought together with a clap, used at the start of each take of a motion picture or other video production to be able to synchronize picture and sound during editing.


ronde

(typography, dated) A kind of script in which the heavy strokes are nearly upright, giving the characters when taken together a round look.


above the fold

below the scroll

antonym(s) of “near the top of a web page or application screen”

(newspapers) Situated in the upper half of the front page of a broadsheet newspaper, and thus more prominent, as the lower half is not usually visible when the folded newspaper is displayed for sale.


X-ray vision

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-X-ray vision.wav

(fiction, by extension) The ability or superpower to see through most or all solid objects as if they were transparent.


fembot

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-fembot.wav

Blend of female + -bot. Coined by screenwriters Arthur Rowe and Oliver Crawford in the television series The Bionic Woman (1976–1978), specifically in "Kill Oscar" (season 2, episode 5) first broadcast on October 27, 1976.

Yes, the girl is valuable. But, my fembots can do anything she can.

1976 October 27, Arthur Rowe, Oliver Crawford, Kill Oscar (The Bionic Woman), season 2, episode 5, spoken by Dr. Franklin (John Houseman):

Jawohl, Herr Doktor. I have created the ultimate weapon to defeat Austin Powers. Send in the fembots!

1997, Mike Myers, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, spoken by Frau Farbissina (Mindy Sterling):

The body of Eve 8, the fembot, represents both steely industrial strength and the mysteries of microelectronic circuitry.

2003, Jyanni Steffensen, “Doing It Digitally: Rosalind Brodsky and the Art of Virtual Female Subjectivity”, in Reload: Rethinking Women + Cyberculture, The MIT Press, →ISBN, page 218:

(science fiction) A robot in female or feminine form.

A robot in female or feminine form.
A female sexbot.


photokinesis

photokinesis (usually uncountable, plural photokineses)

(parapsychology, science fiction) The ability to mentally manipulate light.


photolithography

From photo- (“light, photography”) + lithography.

prefix

(printing) A lithographic procedure in which printing plates are made using a photographic process.


breakout character

en-noun

breakout character (plural breakout characters)

(film, television, literature) A character who becomes the most popular, talked about, and imitated, helping to establish the narrative's popularity.


roaming master

(film) A master shot in which the camera moves relative to the performance.


undercrank

en-verb

undercrank (third-person singular simple present undercranks, present participle undercranking, simple past and past participle undercranked)

undercranks (present singular third-person)
undercranking (participle present)
undercranked (participle past)
undercranked (past)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-undercrank.wav

From under- + crank; dating from a time when movie film was advanced in a camera by the turning of a crank.

(film) To shoot a scene while advancing the film in the camera more slowly than it will advance on playback. This results in speeding up the action in the final film.


aftercare

事後照顧 /事后照顾

affection given to a partner after a BDSM activity

[…] bring the aftercare we do in the UK to the US and see if our approach can get the same great results on both sides of the Atlantic.

2010, Jeremy Kyle, You Couldn't Make It Up:

(television) Emotional support offered by the programme makers to a person who has appeared on a stressful television show.


undercranked

en-adj

undercranked (comparative more undercranked, superlative most undercranked)

more undercranked (comparative)
most undercranked (superlative)

(film) Of a scene shot while advancing the film in the camera more slowly than it will play on screen. This results in speeding up the action in the final film.


Dutch angle

From German deutsch, after its use by German filmmakers.

(film) A cinematic tactic achieved by tilting the camera off to the side. The shot is composed with the horizon not parallel with the bottom of the frame. The technique is often used to portray the psychological uneasiness of the subject being filmed.


dolly grip

(film) A technician trained to use a dolly.


two shot

(film) A scene shot with the camera positioned to observe two actors.


establishing shot

en-noun

establishing shot (plural establishing shots)

Using mostly fixed camera positions, he will intersperse scenes with establishing shots of the clanking, pitiless machinery of the ski lift, rattling rhythmically as bits of cable and metal thunk into each other.

2015 April 9, Peter Bradshaw, “Force Majeure review – after the avalanche”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

(film) A master shot, the primary wide shot of a scene used to inform the audience of the location or situation.


wide shot

That post-battle wide shot showing a castle full of bodies and basically only Tormund, Gendry, and Grey Worm still standing was the equivalent of the show saying anyone on screen not wearing a “Hello, my name is…” tag needed to lie down and die.

2019 April 28, Alex McLevy, “Game Of Thrones Suffers the Fog of War in the Battle against the Dead (Newbies)”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 2021-05-31:

(film) A film or video recording made with the camera positioned to observe the most action in the performance.

plan large

A shot with the camera positioned to observe the most action in the proformance


closeup

All right, Mr DeMille, I'm ready for my closeup.

1950, Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett, D.M. Marshman Jr., Sunset Blvd.:

(film) A video or film recording made with the camera positioned close to an actor, often so that only the head or face is visible.


BFG

(literature) Initialism of Big Friendly Giant.


antihero

/ˈæn.tɪˌhɪə.ɹəʊ/

Alienation: A stage on the downside of the passage wherein the holdfast and the antihero take actions which bring about a disintegration of personality.

2006, James Bonnet, Stealing Fire from the Gods: The Complete Guide to Story for Writers and Filmmakers:

(literature, roleplaying games) A protagonist who proceeds in an unheroic manner, such as by criminal means, via cowardly actions, or for mercenary goals.


pickup

pickup (countable and uncountable, plural pickups)

Chinese:

→ Mandarin: 皮卡 (píkǎ)

→ Finnish: pick-up

→ French: pick-up, pickup

→ German: Pickup

→ Indonesian: pikap

→ Japanese: ピックアップ (pikkuappu)

desc

→ Khmer: ភីកអាប់ (pʰiik’ap), ពីកឺប (piikəɨp)

→ Korean: 픽업 (pigeop)

→ Portuguese: pickup, pick-up, picape (Brazil)

→ Russian: пика́п (pikáp)

→ Spanish: pickup, picop

→ Thai: ปิคอัพ (bpìk-àp)

→ Turkish: pikap

→ Uyghur: پىكاپ (pikap)

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(film) A relatively minor shot filmed or recorded after the fact to augment previous footage.

dokrętka

material filmed after the fact to augment main footage


monometer

(poetry) A line of verse containing a single metrical foot.


concetto

/kənˈt͡ʃɛtəʊ/

Borrowed from Italian concetto, from Latin conceptus. See conceit and concept, which are doublets.

Tasso in particular, Mirollo notes, treated the concetto "as the equivalent in a lyric poem of plot in longer works." Pellegrino, similarly, and with reference to Tasso, says that concetti "are the soul and the form of a composition" […]

1997, James Biester, Lyric Wonder: Rhetoric and Wit in Renaissance English Poetry, Cornell University Press, →ISBN, page 32:

But to restrict the concetto to an idea or concept gives short shrift to the metaphorical and sometimes occult implications of the term. Conceit as discors concordia involves the comparison of unlike things, the finding of similarity in dissimilarity.

2006, Vernon Hyde Minor, The Death of the Baroque and the Rhetoric of Good Taste, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 9:

(literature) Affected wit; a witty turn of phrase; a conceit.


single-space

en-verb

single-space (third-person singular simple present single-spaces, present participle single-spacing, simple past and past participle single-spaced)

single-spaces (present singular third-person)
single-spacing (participle present)
single-spaced (participle past)
single-spaced (past)

(transitive, typography) To type (or format) text without leaving a blank line between each line of text.

(intransitive, typography) To type (or format) text with only one space between consecutive sentences.


hair space

(letterpress typography) A piece of metal type used to create the narrowest space.

(typography, US) The narrowest space appearing between letters and punctuation.


double-spaced

All I do know for certain is that I had something happy and exciting to tell you—and on just one side of the paper, doublespaced — and I knew when I got home that it was mostly gone, or all gone, and there was nothing left to do but go through the motions.

1957, J. D. Salinger, “Zooey”, in Franny and Zooey, published 1961:

(typography) Formatted so that there is a full blank line between each line of text; the style of formatting required by many entities inside business, academia, and publishing.


shooting stick

(printing, historical) A printer's tool to be struck with a mallet for driving quoins.


space suppression

(computing, printing) The suppression of the normal advancement of paper in a printer after printing a line of text.


space out

space out (third-person singular simple present spaces out, present participle spacing out, simple past and past participle spaced out)

spaces out (present singular third-person)
spacing out (participle present)
spaced out (participle past)
spaced out (past)

(transitive, dated, typing, printing) To increase the white space between letters, words or lines.


hydrokinesis

(fantasy, science fiction) The psychic ability to manipulate or control water


subspace

en-noun

subspace (countable and uncountable, plural subspaces)

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“If he reconfigures the subspace relays and uploads his own code into them, he'll have access to the computers on every planet, ship, and station.” “Alarming. He could vent oxygen, crash vessels, or even detonate warp cores.” “Everyone in the quadrant's gonna die, and it's all my fault.” “Parents are not directly responsible for the actions of their children.”

2023 October 12, Edgar Momplaisir, “A Few Badgeys More” (16:39 from the start), in Star Trek: Lower Decks, season 4, episode 7, spoken by Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome):

(uncountable, science fiction) Any (often unspecified) method of communicating or travelling faster than light speed.

(uncountable, science fiction) An alternative dimension or universe, access to or use of which permits faster-than-light travel or communications; hyperspace.


basher

(television, film) A kind of small floodlight.


white out

en-verb

white out (third-person singular simple present whites out, present participle whiting out, simple past and past participle whited out)

whites out (present singular third-person)
whiting out (participle present)
whited out (participle past)
whited out (past)

(obsolete, printing) To space out a composition for printing.


make-ready

(printing) A sheet of paper on which overlays are pasted for printing.

(printing) The process of preparing such sheets


fluff girl

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-fluff girl.wav

John walked over to the women on the couch with a pandering smile. "I really hate to break this up, but we're ready to roll tape." Rod switched position with Karen's fluff girl, waited for his cue, then it was back to the races.

2000, Peter Scott Harmyk, Say Good-Bye to Johnnie Blue, Ivy House Publishing Group, →ISBN:

Buck looks down at his crotch then back up again, "There's nothing to pick up anymore." Cliff peers around. "Who's the fluff girl today?" The young woman on the sideline steps forward, "I am." "Okay, Annie, please take care of Buck," says Cliff.

2003, Lynn Isenberg, My Life Uncovered, Don Mills, Ont.: Red Dress Ink, →ISBN:

(pornography) A woman who arouses male pornographic actors before filming.


omniverse

(science fiction) The entire set of co-existing universes, multiverses, etc.


vocalization

en-noun

vocalization (countable and uncountable, plural vocalizations)

vowelization

supplying vowels/diacritics to Arabic and Hebrew words/texts

(orthography) The vowel diacritics in certain scripts, like Hebrew and Arabic, which are not normally written, but which are used in dictionaries, children's books, religious texts and textbooks for learners.

تَشْكِيل

supplying the vowels (diacritics), e.g. Arabic and Hebrew

(orthography, phonology) The addition of these diacritics and the respective phonemes to a word; the spoken form the word thereby receives.