Etymology

mise en abyme

Today it means: A recursive image; an image that contains a smaller representation of itself; especially where the smaller representation itself likewise contains a still smaller representation of the whole image, ad infinitum. Full definition →

French mise en abyme
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The story

  1. French · borrowed frommise en abyme
  2. English todaymise en abyme

Borrowed from French mise en abyme (literally “placement into abyss”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.