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.

   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.

   1993, Will Self, My Idea of Fun

   2 more examples

   Is consciousness really discontinuous, incessantly interrupted and recommencing (from the psychologist’s point of view)? and does it only seem continuous to itself by an illusion analogous to that of the zoetrope?

   1890, William James, The principles of psychology, page 200

   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.

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

   Synonyms: daedalum, thaumatrope