zoetrope means an optical toy, in which figures made to revolve on the inside of a cylinder, and viewed through slits in its circumference, appear like a single figure passing through a series of natural motions as if animated or mechanically moved. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 88 out of 100.
zoetrope is pronounced /ˈzəʊɪtɹəʊp/.
Why “zoetrope” is a great word
ZOETROPE — [Noun] An optical toy consisting of a cylinder with vertical slits and a strip of sequential images inside, which, when spun, produces the illusion of a single moving figure. From the Ancient Greek ζωή (zōḗ, "life") and τρόπος (tropos, "turn, turning"), literally meaning "wheel of life." Coined in the 1860s by inventor William E. Lincoln. Unlike the thaumatrope, which merely fuses two images, or the phenakistiscope, which requires a mirror for a solitary viewer, the zoetrope is a communal cylinder, a theater of slats that parcels sight into discrete, flickering instants. It is the galloping horse stuttering into motion behind a cage of black bars, the dancer pirouetting in a ghostly loop, and the brief, mechanical resurrection conjured from a spin of paper and wood—a testament to the eye’s willingness to believe in the continuity born from a succession of breaks.
noun
- An optical toy, in which figures made to revolve on the inside of a cylinder, and viewed through slits in its circumference, appear like a single figure passing through a series of natural motions as if animated or mechanically moved.“Is consciousness really discontinuous, incessantly interrupted and recommencing (from the psychologist’s point of view)? and does it only seem continuous to itself by an illusion analogous to that of the zoetrope?”