kaleidoscope

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“
The carnival music-scored title sequence of birds and unhatched eggs in a nest as seen through a kaleidoscope is the most memorable and fitting opening credit sequence so far.

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Definitions (8)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun A tube-shaped optical instrument that is rotated to produce a succession of symmetrical designs by means of mirrors reflecting the constantly changing patterns made by bits of colored glass at one end of the tube.
  2. noun A constantly changing set of colors.
  3. noun A series of changing phases or events: a kaleidoscope of illusions.

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Examples (50)

  • Like a scene in a kaleidoscope, the situation in a fast-moving aerial battle changes instantly and often drastically. —  Attack of the Airacobras - Soviet Aces, American P-39s and the Air War Against Germany
  • In Halifax, England, white-coated attendants pushed willing victims into the Gasworks, a metal sphere where strobes escalated sublime color fields into what one freaked reviewer described as a kaleidoscope of Islamic tile designs injected straight into the eyeball. —  Omni: Winter 1995
  • He simply had to keep his eyelids moving lightly like a kaleidoscope, using his lashes as a grid. —  Maigret Afraid—70—Georges Simenon
  • But other images overlaid the present like a kaleidoscope: Curtis at all ages, wide eyes embracing the world, ready to give, ready to join, until biology and the move to Houston twisted him into something more complex. —  Strange Horizons, Dec '01
  • This sudden turn of the political kaleidoscope was a pivotal point in the life of Ary Scheffer. —  Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters
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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Greek kalos, beautiful + eidos, form; see weid- in Indo-European roots + -scope.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. French kaleidoscope (from English); irreg. from Greek καλός, beautiful, + ειδος, form, + σκοπεῑν, view.
 

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/kæˈlaɪdəskoʊp/
by American Heritage

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