microfilm

1 of 2

noun

mi·​cro·​film ˈmī-krə-ˌfilm How to pronounce microfilm (audio)
: a film bearing a photographic record on a reduced scale of printed or other graphic matter

microfilm

2 of 2

verb

microfilmed; microfilming; microfilms

transitive verb

: to reproduce on microfilm
microfilmable adjective
microfilmer noun

Examples of microfilm in a Sentence

Noun studying newspaper microfilms from the early 1900s
Recent Examples on the Web
Noun
But the other 40 million records — dating from 1850 to 1976 — are recorded only on paper, books or microfilm rolls. Jaclyn Cosgrove, Los Angeles Times, 6 Feb. 2024 His mother, Patricia Jacobs, was a graduate of Harvard Law School who ran a microfilm company, and was once profiled in Black Enterprise. Julian Lucas, The New Yorker, 8 Jan. 2024 Newspaper articles about it were removed before the pages transferred to microfilm. Christine Hauser, New York Times, 10 Oct. 2023 Certainly, much of the early conceptualizing for High Times came from Ronnie Volvox and Ed Rosenthal, who’d been working for the Alternative Press Syndicate and realized that microfilm royalties weren’t covering their operating costs. Sean Howe, Rolling Stone, 26 Aug. 2023 During a site visit, the IRS was unable to locate any of the fiscal year 2010 microfilm cartridges that should have been sent to the Kansas City Tax Processing Center in 2022 after the Fresno Tax Processing Center closed. Bryan Mena, CNN, 13 Aug. 2023 At the facility in Ogden, Utah, the watchdog discovered seven empty boxes that should have contained up to 168 microfilm cartridges, which hold up to 2,000 photographic images each. David Zimmermann, Washington Examiner, 10 Aug. 2023 Depending on the age of the house, this information might be on a computer, paper or microfilm. Gabe Bullard, Washington Post, 27 Sep. 2023 Adkins said the State Archives had the entire run of the Echo on microfilm, but some of the microfilm wasn't up to the standards required by the National Digital Newspaper Program. Bill Bowden, Arkansas Online, 20 Nov. 2022
Verb
Most of the files have been microfilmed and converted to PDFs, though the original paperwork remains available for inspection. Nicole Dungca, Washington Post, 15 Dec. 2023 His team quickly microfilmed the material and sent it to the front, where Allied artillery units could immediately use it to improve their targeting. Greg Miller, Smithsonian, 23 Oct. 2019 Absent that microfilmed archive, maybe Donald Trump could have kept insinuating that Barack Obama had in fact been born in Kenya, and granting sufficient political corruption, that lie might at some later date have become official history. Maria Bustillos, Longreads, 20 Feb. 2018 In 2015, the museum partnered with FamilySearch.org, the non-profit leg of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, to index two million microfilmed Freedmen’s Bureau names. Allison Keyes, Smithsonian, 8 Feb. 2018

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'microfilm.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

Noun

International Scientific Vocabulary

First Known Use

Noun

1906, in the meaning defined above

Verb

1937, in the meaning defined at transitive sense

Time Traveler
The first known use of microfilm was in 1906

Dictionary Entries Near microfilm

Cite this Entry

“Microfilm.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/microfilm. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

microfilm

noun
mi·​cro·​film
ˈmī-krə-ˌfilm
: a film carrying a photographic record (as of printing or a drawing) on a reduced scale
microfilm verb

More from Merriam-Webster on microfilm

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