English

A modern replica of a Victorian zoetrope.

Noun

zoetrope ‎(plural zoetropes)

1. An optical toy, in which figures made to revolve on the inside of a cylinder, and viewed through slits in its circumference, appear like a single figure passing through a series of natural motions as if animated or mechanically moved.
   • 1993, Will Self, My Idea of Fun

     This was the way I passed through the remainder of my childhood. The zoetrope span smoothly, time’s Chief Designer narrowed the legs of trousers and decreed that the cars should be more aerodynamic.

   • 2014 April 11, Ron Charles, “David Grand’s ‘Mount Terminus’”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 190, number 18, page 37:

     The Rosenbloom Loop is a clever little device, but it’s an even more clever symbol of the role that discipline plays in the creation of illusion: the persistence of vision that makes sequential still images appear to move. In a sense, that’s the wizardry that Grand spins in this zoetrope of a novel as these characters love and build and pine and die.

Anagrams

• zeotrope

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