Forms: 1 fil-, fylmen, 5 vilm, 5–6 fylme, (6 philome), 6–7 filme, 7– film. [OE. filmen str. neut., membrane, caul, prepuce, cognate with OFris. filmene skin; the WGer. *filmin(n)i is an extension (with suffix repr. OTeut. -jo-) of *felmen-, -on- (OE. ǽg-felma skin of an egg), f. the same root as FELL sb.1]
† 1. A membrane, animal or vegetable. Obs.
c. 1000. Sax. Leechd., II. 204. Her sint tacn aheardodre lifre, ȝe on þam læppan, & healocum & filmenum.
c. 1400. Lanfranc’s Cirurg. (MS. A), 241. Rethina þat is þe þinne skyn … Þat is clepid þe vilm of þe ize.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 160/2. Fylme, of a notte, or oþer lyke, folliculus.
1530. Palsgr., 220/1. Fylme that covereth the brayne, taye.
1562. Turner, Herbal, II. 31 b. Rounde cornes diuided one from an other by filmes yt rynne betwene.
1610. Barrough, Meth. Physick, I. ix. (1639), 13. When noysome humours do cleaue so fast to the filmes & tunicles of the stomacke.
1693. Evelyn, De la Quint. Compl. Gard., 47. In a Wallnut for Instance, one part goes to make a Green, Tough, and Bitter Bark, another part the Shell lin’d with Films.
1743. Lond. & Country Brew., III. (ed. 2), 193. Twelve Eggs, their Shells being only bruised, but the Films not broken.
1764. Harmer, Observ., I. vii. 313. The ancient Ægyptian books were made of the papyrus, a sort of bulrush … whose stalk was covered with several films, or inner skins, on which they wrote.
† b. Applied to the tongue. Obs. rare–1.
1644. Bp. Hall, Serm., 9 June, Rem. Wks. (1660), 101. This loose and busie filme, winch we carry in our mouths.
2. An extremely thin pellicle or lamina of any material.
1653. Quarles, Embl., II. x. (1718), 102.
| The painted film but of a stronger bubble, | |
| That’s lined with silken trouble. |
1747. W. Gould, An Account of English Ants, 54. These Wings are composed of exceeding fine and thin Films, which in the Sun often reflect Variety of Colours.
a. 1799. Black, Lect. Chem. (1803), II. 677. An ingot … appears fine, even when cut through with a chizel, because this carries a film along with it from the surface, which covers the rest.
1831. Brewster, Optics, xvi. 138. Even silver and gold, when beaten into thin films, are transparent, the former transmitting a beautiful blue, and the latter a beautiful green light.
1853. Herschel, Pop. Lect. Sc., vi. § 29 (1873), 245. As if the two media were separated by an exceedingly thin film of air.
1860. Emerson, Cond. Life, Fate, Wks. (Bohn), II. 318. A tube made of a film of glass can resist the shock of the ocean, if filled with the same water.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. vi. 44. The clean ice-surfaces which they left behind sparkled with minute stars as the small bubbles of air ruptured the film of water by which they were overspread.
b. Often applied to the emanations from the surface of bodies (‘Simulacra … Quae quasi membranæ summo de corpore rerum Direptæ volitant,’ Lucr., IV. 35), which in the philosophy of Epicurus were supposed to be the objects of perception.
1681. Creech, trans. Lucretius, IV. 36.
| Now, (for tis fit) my Muse declares, and sings, | |
| What those are we call Images of Things, | |
| Which like thin films from bodies rise in streams, | |
| Play in the Air, and dance upon the beams. |
1692. Bentley, Folly of Ath. (ed. 4), 8. There is not now one Infidel living, so ridiculous as to pretend to solve the Phænomena of Sight, Fancy or Cogitation by those fleeting superficial films of Bodies.
1785. Reid, Int. Powers, II. xx. 268. The films of Epicurus, and the ideas and impressions of modern Philosophers, are the productions of human fancy.
3. esp. A thin pellicle forming a coating or overlying layer.
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb. (1586), IV. 184. The Hony at the beginning is thinne as water, and after the strayning, it worketh like newe Wine, and spurgeth: at the twentieth day, it waxeth thicke, and afterwardes, is couered with a thinne rine, or filme, where the froth of ye purging is geathered togeather.
1665. Phil. Trans., I. 34. A slimy film floated on the top of the water, which after a while falling to the bottom, there came another such film in its place.
1704. F. Fuller, Med. Gymn. (1711), 18. Do we not frequently observe in scorbutick Persons, who have led a sedentary Life, that their Urines are cover’d with an oily Film of several Colours?
1726–46. Thomson, Winter, 726.
| An icy Gale, oft shifting, o’er the Pool | |
| Breathes a blue Film, and in its mid Career | |
| Arrests the bickering Stream. |
1784. Cowper, Task, IV. 291.
| Nor less amus’d, have I quiescent watch’d | |
| The sooty films, that play upon the bars. |
1806. Med. Jrnl., XV. 148. When the dressings were removed, part of the thick case of pus came away in several places, exposing a surface beautifully red, covered with a semi-transparent white film, which proved to be new cuticle.
1812. Sir H. Davy, Chem. Philos., 294. When electrical sparks are passed through gases of this kind for a long time, a reddish film which burns like phosphorus is deposited.
1851. Ruskin, Stones Ven. (1874), I. xx. 218. Lines which are lovely in the pearly film of the Nautilus shell, are lost in the grey roughness of stone.
1863. Lyell, Antiq. Man, 34. The film of matter which is thrown down annually on the great alluvial plain during the season of inundation.
b. Photography. A thin pellicle or coating of collodion, gelatin, etc. spread on photographic paper or plates, or used by itself instead of a plate.
1845. Thornthwaite, Guide Photogr., 52. The film of isinglass, now indurated, peels off, and will be found to bear a minute copy of the original, and can be examined either by reflected or transmitted light.
1883. Hardwick’s Photogr. Chem. (ed. 9), 175. If, from any cause, such as excess of Iodide, deficiency of setting power in the Collodion, &c., the sensitive film of Iodide be allowed to lie loosely upon the surface of the Collodion, the picture will be very feeble, and will often fall away when the fixing agent is applied.
1890. Woodbury, Encycl. Photogr., Film Negative Process, or film photography, is a term applied to processes in which flexible films are used instead of glass plates.
4. A morbid growth upon the eye. Also said of the growing dimness in the eyes of a dying person; sometimes film of death.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 367. Serueth to annoint the eies, for the webs, filmes, & cataracts which trouble the eiesight.
1712. Pope, Messiah, 39.
| He from thick films shall purge the visual ray, | |
| And on the sightless eye-ball pour the day. |
1762. Sterne, Tr. Shandy, VI. x. The film forsook his eyes for a moment.
1822. Hazlitt, Table-t., I. vii. 147. A whim or two, an odd fancy, like a film before the eye, now and then crossed it.
1877. L. Morris, Epic Hades, II. 104.
| And o’er his glaring eyes the films of death | |
| Crept, and his writhing flank and hiss of hate | |
| The great deep swallowed down. |
fig. 1626. T. H[awkins], trans. Caussin’s Holy Crt., 60. The euill spirit, instantly spreadeth a filme ouer theyr eyes, and makes them feele impressions of meere sluggishnesse, vnder the false veyle of Courage.
a. 1711. Ken, Psyche, Poet. Wks. 1721, IV. 253.
| From sensual Films when free’d, she saw strange Sights | |
| Of sep’rate Souls, and Angels num’rous Flights. |
1846. Grote, Greece, I. xvi. (1862), I. 370. They looked at the past with a film of faith over their eyes—neither knowing the value, nor desiring the attainment of an unclouded vision.
5. transf. A slight veil or covering of haze, mist, or the like. lit. and fig.
1833. L. Ritchie, Wand. by Loire, 31. The interminable vineyards of the Loire, already covered with the film of early twilight, stretching far into the distance.
1837. Syd. Smith, Lett. to Singleton Wks. (1859), II. 265/1. This is a mere theory—a slight film thrown over convenient injustice.
1847. H. Miller, First Impr., xiv. (1857), 244. An incipient frost, in the form of a thin film of blue vapour, rested in the lower hollows.
1883. Times, 10 Aug., 2/3. The brown … walls show through a film of peach and almond blossoms.
6. A fine thread or filament, as of gossamer, silk, etc. lit. and fig.
1592. Shaks., Rom. & Jul., I. iv. 63. Her Whip of Crickets bone, the Lash of Philome.
1781. Cowper, Anti-Thelyphthora, 73.
| When scarlet fruits the russet hedge adorn, | |
| And floating films envelope ev’ry thorn. |
a. 1822. Shelley, Unf. Drama, 230.
| Floating on the line | |
| Which, like a film in purest space, divided | |
| The heaven beneath the water from the heaven | |
| Above the clouds. |
1845. Darwin, Voy. Nat., viii. (1879), 161. They were not, however, straight, but in undulations like films of silk blown by the wind.
1849. Ruskin, Sev. Lamps, iv. § 10. 102. It [a riband] is a vile thing; it spoils all that is near its wretched film of an existence.
1859. I. Taylor, Logic in Theol., 203. Scores of Hindoo youths … make us believe that India has now set foot upon the field of European thought. But we must not trust ourselves to any such films of correspondence as this.
7. Comb., as film-like, -winged adjs.; also † film-broke, ruptured; † film-bursting, hernia; film-fern, a fern with filmy fronds, esp. one of the genus Hymenophyllum; film-free a., free from film, not obscured, clear.
c. 1400. Lanfranc’s Cirurg., 281. Men þat weren *filme broke.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, I. lvi. 83. The leaues pound and layde too healeth *filme [printed filine] burstings [Fr. hergnes].
1865. Gosse, Land & Sea (1874), 352. Out of the same crevices many species of *Film-ferns, Hymenophyllum and Trichomanes, project their tufts of pellucid fronds, and twine their matted wiry roots around the groined projections.
1880. Browning, Dram. Idylls, Pan & Luna, 17.
| And thus it proved when—diving into space, | |
| Stript of all vapour, from each web of mist | |
| Utterly *film-free—entered on her race | |
| The naked Moon. |
1865. E. B. Tylor, Researches into the Early History of Mankind, i. 9. Dreams … are caused by the *film-like images which fly off from the surfaces of real objects, and come in contact with our minds and senses.
1875. S. Lanier, Poems, Symphony, 139.
| All shynesses of *film-winged things | |
| That fly from tree-trunks and bark-rings. |
