thaumatrope

thaumatrope is defined in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913) with 1 sense. The full text of each entry is reproduced verbatim below.

Definitions

  1. 1.An optical instrument or toy for showing the presistence of an impression upon the eyes after the luminous object is withdrawn. Note: It consists of a card having on its opposite faces figures of two different objects, or halves of the same object, as a bird and a cage, which, when the card is whirled rapidlz round a diameter by the strings that hold it, appear to the eye combined in a single picture, as of a bird in its cage.

Source: Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).

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