nickelodeon
noun
nick·el·ode·on ˌni-kə-ˈlō-dē-ən 
1
: an early movie theater to which admission usually cost five cents
2
: jukebox
Example Sentences
Recent Examples on the Web The concept was as simple as a soda machine, as efficient as a cafeteria, and as magical as a nickelodeon. 
Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 24 Feb. 2022 Signing up a music-minded teenager who can write code to program this three-legged psychedelic nickelodeon? Los Angeles Times, 16 Mar. 2021 By 1909, there were 42 nickelodeons adjacent to the Lower East Side and 10 uptown in Jewish Harlem. Jamie Lauren Keiles, Vox, 21 Dec. 2018 The picture would be shown only in little Main Street nickelodeons, where his friends would never set foot. Longreads, 15 May 2018 Around the turn of the 20th century, storefront nickelodeon movie theaters joined saloons, dance halls and bowling alleys as city gathering points. John Jurgensen, WSJ, 4 June 2018 For over a century, the building was a neighborhood cornerstone, first as a church, then as an athletic club, and later as a nickelodeon that drew hundreds of attendees a day to its Yiddish vaudeville performances. Luis FerrÉ-sadurnÍ, New York Times, 21 Jan. 2018 New York rabbi and cultural anthropologist Joshua Eli Plaut noted there were 42 nickelodeons — 5 cent movies — in the neighborhood, the most in the city. Andrew Wolfson, The Courier-Journal, 15 Dec. 2017 Canny immigrant garment makers, glimpsing profits in a new gadget, the nickelodeon, gave birth to America’s movie industry (even if most of that industry soon departed for sunnier Hollywood). Joseph Berger, New York Times, 9 Oct. 2017 See More
Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 24 Feb. 2022 Signing up a music-minded teenager who can write code to program this three-legged psychedelic nickelodeon? Los Angeles Times, 16 Mar. 2021 By 1909, there were 42 nickelodeons adjacent to the Lower East Side and 10 uptown in Jewish Harlem. Jamie Lauren Keiles, Vox, 21 Dec. 2018 The picture would be shown only in little Main Street nickelodeons, where his friends would never set foot. Longreads, 15 May 2018 Around the turn of the 20th century, storefront nickelodeon movie theaters joined saloons, dance halls and bowling alleys as city gathering points. John Jurgensen, WSJ, 4 June 2018 For over a century, the building was a neighborhood cornerstone, first as a church, then as an athletic club, and later as a nickelodeon that drew hundreds of attendees a day to its Yiddish vaudeville performances. Luis FerrÉ-sadurnÍ, New York Times, 21 Jan. 2018 New York rabbi and cultural anthropologist Joshua Eli Plaut noted there were 42 nickelodeons — 5 cent movies — in the neighborhood, the most in the city. Andrew Wolfson, The Courier-Journal, 15 Dec. 2017 Canny immigrant garment makers, glimpsing profits in a new gadget, the nickelodeon, gave birth to America’s movie industry (even if most of that industry soon departed for sunnier Hollywood). Joseph Berger, New York Times, 9 Oct. 2017 See More Word History
Etymology
probably from nickel + -odeon (as in melodeon music hall)
First Known Use
1888, in the meaning defined at sense 1
nickelodeon
noun
as in playhouse
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
- playhouse
- cinema
- theater
- theatre
- megaplex
- cinematheque
- art theater
- multiplex
- plex
- art house
- grind house
- drive-in
- fleapit
- 'plex
