freeze-frame

noun

ˈfrēz-ˈfrām 

plural freeze-frames

1

a

: a frame of a motion-picture film that is repeated so as to give the illusion of a static picture

b

: a static picture produced from a video recording

On one of the desktop monitors is a freeze-frame from Little Women, Gerwig's new film …

—Chloe Malle

a freeze-frame image

2

: something resembling a freeze-frame (as in reflecting or preserving a particular moment in time)

We should acknowledge that these pandemic curves are only freeze-frames of a situation still very much in flux …

—Francesca Melandri

freeze-frame transitive verb

freeze-framed; freeze-framing; freeze-frames

… I freeze-framed a scene in the promo for Monday's show and compared it to online photos of the hotel …

—Debra Yeo

Examples of freeze-frame in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

But those full-color moments felt more like watching a freeze-frame of a movie. —Jeff Suess, The Enquirer, 17 Mar. 2024

And the final shot — a freeze-frame of Nancy turning herself in, as her family left her behind — was profound enough to mark the show's conclusion. —Ew Staff, EW.com, 8 Jan. 2024

As the production team showed the replay of Solomon’s grab, Madden drew over a freeze-frame of the play, diagramming how Solomon sprung open. —Danny Emerman, The Mercury News, 9 Feb. 2024

The outcome isn’t shown, even though the freeze-frame of the boxers was turned into a LeRoy Neiman painting. —Vulture, 4 Feb. 2024

Over-Nite Sensation is a triumph: a concentrated digest from perhaps the most popular stretch of his career, and a freeze-frame of his compositional flowering and ingenious lyrical ribaldry. —Daniel Felsenthal, The Atlantic, 27 Nov. 2023

The app takes a photo, but think of it as a freeze-frame. —Jim Rossman, Dallas News, 30 May 2023

Sharpe himself had long lamented the depiction of pinball in the mainstream media — not just the freeze-frame inaccuracies only a true pinhead would notice, but the undeserved snark dismissing the game either as a vice for Fonzie-like greasers or as an esoteric outlet for Tommy-like obsessives. —Adam Ruben, Washington Post, 26 Mar. 2023

As the Fashion Weeks continued, this idea continually reemerged: In London, at Erdem’s show, a tribute to the mindful labors of art and antique garment restorers; in Milan, where Matthieu Blazy’s precise asymmetries and windswept gestures at Bottega Veneta read like freeze-frames of life in motion. —Maya Singer, Vogue, 20 Feb. 2023

Word History

First Known Use

1948, in the meaning defined at sense 1a