nickelodeon

noun

nick·​el·​ode·​on ˌni-kə-ˈlō-dē-ən 

1

: an early movie theater to which admission usually cost five cents

2

: jukebox

Example Sentences

Recent Examples on the Web

Among the stops on the Streets were the Usinger's sausage-making window, a nickelodeon that showed short silent films, a drugstore, a stable and a candy store. —Chris Foran, Journal Sentinel, 13 Feb. 2023

The concept was as simple as a soda machine, as efficient as a cafeteria, and as magical as a nickelodeon. —Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 24 Feb. 2022

Signing up a music-minded teenager who can write code to program this three-legged psychedelic nickelodeon? —Los Angeles Times, 16 Mar. 2021

By 1909, there were 42 nickelodeons adjacent to the Lower East Side and 10 uptown in Jewish Harlem. —Jamie Lauren Keiles, Vox, 21 Dec. 2018

The picture would be shown only in little Main Street nickelodeons, where his friends would never set foot. —Longreads, 15 May 2018

Around the turn of the 20th century, storefront nickelodeon movie theaters joined saloons, dance halls and bowling alleys as city gathering points. —John Jurgensen, WSJ, 4 June 2018

For over a century, the building was a neighborhood cornerstone, first as a church, then as an athletic club, and later as a nickelodeon that drew hundreds of attendees a day to its Yiddish vaudeville performances. —Luis FerrÉ-sadurnÍ, New York Times, 21 Jan. 2018

New York rabbi and cultural anthropologist Joshua Eli Plaut noted there were 42 nickelodeons — 5 cent movies — in the neighborhood, the most in the city. —Andrew Wolfson, The Courier-Journal, 15 Dec. 2017

See More

Word History

Etymology

probably from nickel + -odeon (as in melodeon music hall)

First Known Use

1888, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Kids Definition

nickelodeon

noun

nick·​el·​ode·​on ˌnik-ə-ˈlōd-ē-ən 

1

: an early movie theater charging five cents for admission

2

: jukebox