movie

noun mov·ie \ ˈmü-vē \

Updated on: 19 Apr 2018

Definition of movie

1 : motion picture

2 movies plural : a showing of a motion picture

3 movies plural : the motion-picture medium or industry

See movie defined for English-language learners

See movie defined for kids

Examples of movie in a Sentence

He wants to work in the movies.
a career in the movies

Recent Examples of movie from the Web

Schomberg, who lives in Colorado, also loaned the DVAA a bronze statuette of the official Rocky statue, which a talk will examine as art rather than a movie prop, Pron says.

— nick vadala, Philly.com, "'Rocky' as art: Philly gallery explores Italian Stallion in new show," 16 Apr. 2018
Get your relationship back on track by having fun together: lunch or dinner out, a shopping excursion, a movie.

— steven p. dinkin, sandiegouniontribune.com, "The 13-year-old and the lure of Instagram," 15 Apr. 2018
The effect is like that of entering a movie set depicting the high-tech lair of a villain in a James Bond film, but without the air of menace and malevolence.

— steven litt, cleveland.com, "Tauba Auerbach show at MOCA Cleveland melds art, physics (photos)," 15 Apr. 2018
Turbo Kid isn’t a movie that takes itself too seriously.

— lincoln michel, GQ, "Turbo Kid Is the Blood-Soaked '80s Homage You Can Stream on Netflix," 14 Apr. 2018
Sugimoto used a large-format camera and set his exposure to be the full length of a film, hoping to capture a movie’s thousands of still frames within a single image.

— rachel deloache williams, The Hive, "“As an Added Bonus, She Paid for Everything”: My Bright-Lights Misadventure with a Magician of Manhattan," 13 Apr. 2018
One has a strong sense that people who invoke that argument have never seen a movie about what happens when humans encounter life in outer space.

— jennifer wright, Harper's BAZAAR, "Abortion Is Not Murder," 13 Apr. 2018
Electric Entertainment is also possibly shooting a TV-movie here.

— kristi turnquist, OregonLive.com, "Dean Devlin on David Tennant, 'Bad Samaritan' and Portland, his 'favorite' place to shoot," 13 Apr. 2018
All these characters make for a movie that never slows down, but among all the mayhem, Johnson is completely lost.

— katie walsh, idahostatesman, "‘Rampage’ is big, dumb fun | Idaho Statesman," 12 Apr. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'movie.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Origin and Etymology of movie

moving picture

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: 1909

in the meaning defined at sense 1

See Words from the same year

movie Synonyms

Synonyms

film, flick, flicker, motion picture, moving picture, picture;

silent, talkie;

Other Pictures (on film) Terms

daguerreotype, emulsion, fill, sepia, still, stop

MOVIE Defined for English Language Learners

movie

noun

Definition of movie for English Language Learners

: a recording of moving images that tells a story and that people watch on a screen or television
the movies : a showing of a movie in a theater; also : a movie theater
: the business of making movies : the film industry