Since its introduction in the early 20th century, the film industry’s contributions to the English language have been manifold. Some terms, along with the concepts they described, were fleeting. Take Smell-O-Vision, the movie-going experience in which plot-related scents were pumped into the theater during screenings; it made its debut and last appearance in the same 1960s film.

However, other terms born in cinema have stuck around to this day, and some have even broadened their applications beyond the lexicon of film.

Where did the phrase silver screen come from?

When English speakers first started attending “the pictures” in the 1910s, movie screens were coated with reflective metallic paint, resulting in a silver surface to better display the projected images.

By the 1920s, the term silver screen moved beyond the literal realm and into metaphorical territory to apply to cinema in general.

Fun fact: This type of sense broadening in which something associated with an object or concept takes on the name of that thing is called metonymy.

What does Technicolor mean?

This term was coined by the company named Technicolor, and the trademarked term described “the company’s process of dying film to create a color print from black-and-white originals, replacing the time-consuming hand-coloring method.”

Patented in 1916, filmmakers widely implemented the Technicolor process, characterized by highly saturated colors, up through the early 1950s. Famous films that used Technicolor include The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Singin’ in the Rain (1952).

Starting in the late 1930s, the term bled into general usage with a new sense: “vibrant, flamboyant, or lurid in color, meaning, or detail.” The phrase technicolor yawn, a slang expression describing “the act of vomiting” dating back to the 1960s, embodies a more grotesque version of this term.

What does blockbuster mean?

When the term blockbuster entered English in the 1940s, it referred to “aerial bombs containing high explosives used in large-scale demolitions” as this sort of bomb could take out an entire block of buildings. The earliest blockbusters appear to have been the invention of the British Royal Air Force, and are described at the times as weighing two tons, being about six feet in length, and possessing “very great destructive power.”

Once the Second World War ended, and the literal bombs were no longer being dropped, blockbuster continued to be used metaphorically, generally to describe something that was of great excitement or significance. The term was often used in describing movies, especially by marketers, but not necessarily more so than in describing other things that had a certain wow factor.

The now-defunct video-rental chain Blockbuster first opened in the 1980s and helped further cement the figurative sense of blockbuster to high-grossing films in the minds of English speakers worldwide.