1. A machine, combining magic lantern and kinetoscope features, for projecting on a screen a series of pictures, which were moved rapidly (25 to 50 a second) and intermittently before an objective lens, and producing the illusion of continuous motion.
2. A moving-picture machine; also, any of several other machines or devices producing moving pictorial effects.

Other common names for the cinematograph are animatograph, biograph, bioscope, electrograph, electroscope, kinematograph, kinetoscope, veriscope, vitagraph, vitascope, zoologyroscope, zoopraxiscope, etc.