daguerreotype

Definitions

Daguerre (the French inventor Louis Daguerre) + type (impression) = 'Daguerre's impression.' Here type keeps its most literal sense: a permanent image — an impression of light — captured on a silvered plate.

Why It Means This

A neat reminder that type literally means 'impression.' Before film, the daguerreotype fixed light directly onto a polished silver plate — each one a unique, mirror-like 'impression' of the scene, with no negative to reprint from. The word marries an inventor's name to the oldest meaning of the root.

Example Sentences

• 1.

  The museum displays a rare daguerreotype from the 1840s.

• 2.

  Early portraits were often made as daguerreotypes.