Word of the Day

: June 22, 2007

cineast

noun SIN-ee-ast

What It Means

: a devotee of motion pictures; also : moviemaker

cineast in Context

Ralph and Tory met -- and fell in love -- at a film festival, and within a year the two cineasts were engaged to be married.

Did You Know?

"Cineast" is a French borrowing that made its American premiere in the mid-1920s. The French spliced together "ciné" and "-aste" to create "cinéaste," a word for a filmmaker or movie director. "Ciné" in French is just another word for "cinema," and "-aste" is a suffix that appears in words like "gymnaste" and "enthousiaste." "Cinéaste" underwent several changes once it was established in English. Some writers anglicized its spelling, shortening "-aste" to "-ast" (although "cineaste" and "cinéaste" are also still used). Others began to use "cineast" to mean "film buff," and that's the sense that is most common today.