special effects

plural noun

: visual or sound effects introduced into a motion picture, video recording, or taped television production

Examples of special effects in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Film, with its arsenal of special effects, makes a more natural medium for such a book’s translation, and Ang Lee has already made a popular movie version of it. —Charles Isherwood, WSJ, 31 Mar. 2023

Calm precision and clear intentions reverberate with mysteries; simple but jolting special effects convey the ambient hauntings of the physical world. —Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 30 Mar. 2023

Movie production also brings business to UK travel and equipment firms as well as special effects studios. —Caroline Reid, Forbes, 13 Feb. 2023

The big-and-tall monster, meanwhile, whose body has been entirely covered in fungus, is a triumph of design and special effects, even as the episode cleverly has Kathleen instead die at the hands of the little girl. —Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone, 10 Feb. 2023

Before embarking on her acting career, Coolidge attended the Joe Blasco School in Los Angeles, studying special effects, fashion, and beauty (a curriculum that included a mortuary makeup class, sans cadavers). —Calin Van Paris, Vogue, 9 Feb. 2023

But the software can also create characters out of whole cloth, going beyond traditional editing software and expensive special effects tools used by Hollywood, blurring the line between fact and fiction to an extraordinary degree. —Adam Satariano, BostonGlobe.com, 7 Feb. 2023

The whole thing was special effects. —Matthew Jacobs, Vulture, 2 Feb. 2023

Word History

First Known Use

1907, in the meaning defined above