Word of the Day
: July 27, 2013cineast
playWhat It Means
: a devotee of motion pictures; also : moviemaker
cineast in Context
The once modest film festival is now a huge commercial event that draws cineasts and movie-industry insiders from around the world.
"This just strikes me as a film that cineasts will savor, but the general public might have trouble digesting, considering how bleak and disturbing so many scenes are." - From an article by Bob Tremblay in the Allston-Brighton TAB (Massachusetts), July 13, 2012
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.
Name That Synonym
What 9-letter word is both a synonym and relative of "cineaste"? The answer is …
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