zoopraxiscope

plural zoopraxiscopes · alternative zoöpraxiscope · alternative zoopraxinoscope

1. historicalartsAn instrument developed by Eadweard Muybridge in the 1870's, similar to the phenakistoscope. The instrument involves a disc that includes serial pictures being rotated in front of a light source, projecting them upon a screen, to exhibit the natural movements of animals and the like.

   A few years before, he bought his youngest girl a zoopraxiscope for her birthday, though he alone kept playing with it, after she grew bored. Now those squadrons of flapping geese and parades of bucking broncos that come alive when the glass drum spins animate his brain.

   2018, Richard Powers, The Overstory, Vintage (2019), page 12

   Synonyms: zoogyroscope