Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An early movie theater charging an admission price of five cents.
- n. A player piano.
- n. A jukebox.
Wiktionary
- n. Alternative form of Nickelodeon.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. United States A place of entertainment, as for moving picture exhibition, charging a fee or admission price of five cents.
- n. An early version of a jukebox that was operated by insertion of a nickel{2}.
- n. Trademark The name of a Cable Television channel, specializing in programs for children.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a cabinet containing an automatic record player; records are played by inserting a coin
Etymologies
- nickel + (Mel)odeon, music hall; see melodeon. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Inc. Attention will be focused on 50 major neighborhood and downtown theaters, culled from a list of nearly 250 that have dotted the city's landscape since the first "nickelodeon" opened in 1896 at 626 Canal Street.”
“They seized film, beat up directors and actors, forced audiences out of theaters, smashed the nickelodeon arcades, and set fire to entire city blocks where they were concentrated.”
“Not until the producers of nickelodeon movies agreed to censor their own material did the mayor rescind his order.”
“With stomachs full and heads adequately instructed, workers would be able to resist the temptations of the nickelodeon, the burlesque show, and the amusement park.”
“They moaned, “Oh, you poor thing,” as if Yetta and the other strikers were the damsels in distress in some movie at the nickelodeon—as if the strike were being put on just for their entertainment.”
“Roses and maybe tickets to the nickelodeon and maybe, next summer, that Coney Island place I keep hearing about . . .”
“Wright has made TWO (count them, TWO) movies so stop pretending he's james cameron or chris nolan or something. the comics are straight up stupid. the movie looks like a movie adaption of a nickelodeon cartoon. stupid concept, overrated director, bad lead actor, did i say stupid concept?”
“Like a shirker slipping into a nickelodeon in the middle of the afternoon, he could sneak in whenever he felt like it.”
“Instead her eyes caught the apple orchards parading by like an old nickelodeon, pictures fluttering, slightly disjointed.”
“The entry is tagged under kids choice awards, nickelodeon.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘nickelodeon’.
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Not in the Periodic Table
Words that sound like they might be the names of elements of the periodic table, but that aren't. Many of the words listed here were actually proposed as names for substances their creators thought...
tentorium, columbarium, nasturtium, deuterium, caladium, valerian, concordium, synangium, chorium, geranium, hymenium, pyrenium and 310 more...
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Film
jidaigeki, samurai, Kurosawa, action, comedy, drama, Bergman, Buñuel, surreal, rotoscope, melodrama, Cinerama and 333 more...
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250 Cherry-Picked Words
Juicy words for the intermediate and advanced speller
consomme, miniaceous, nankeen, smaragdine, stramineous, vitellary, allemande, beguine, bransle, charabanc, margaritaceous, chaconne and 238 more...
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ze list
favorites, of all sorts
obscure, pretentious, debacle, vintage, ostentatious, damsel, plethora, requiem, memoir, loathe, lackadaisical, misanthropic and 82 more...
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Play it again sam
public list. words related to the word 'piano'
pianist, piano fangblenny, pianoforte, baby grand, keys, pedal, a percussion with..., piano boxer, grand piano, chordophone, harpsichord, felt hammers and 33 more...
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Nycanthro's list
I like words. Have kept running lists for years now. If I'd been born wealthy I'd be a linguist. Or maybe a semi-reclusive yet world-weary linguist-humanitarian-hiphop-icon known for his humility a...
oaktag, backstory, homonormative, gobshite, imagineer, comeuppance, tomfoolery, ersatz, widdershins, gigajoule, oneupmanship, conniption and 40 more...
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Words I'd Like to Use Someday
thundersnow, phantasmagoria, mercurial, chimerical, taciturn, paraclete, lapis lazuli, flay, guttersnipe, wonky, misanthrope, kestrel and 583 more...
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spicolli's Words
terrapin, ravenous, fuck, sepulchral, garlic, suss, queer, curmudgeon, foodie, intricate, omphalos, subversion and 534 more...
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Rose varieties
Rosarians have names for thousands of varieties of roses.
holy toledo, gourmet popcorn, apple jack, barbara bush, burning desire, hot tamale, tradescant, sweet surrender, sweet chariot, pinocchio, oyster pearl, olympiad and 309 more...
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words I like for one reason or another
nostalgia, corgi, ambiguous, anachronistic, bamboozled, eloquent, emporium, sacrosanct, nascent, obfuscate, miscellaneous, kaleidoscopic and 113 more...
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found in Fuentes
Words found in books by Carlos Fuentes, as translated by Sam Hileman.
nickelodeon, stipendiary, dipsomaniac, bonhomie, goldbrick, Lower Empire Posture, lissome, gabardine
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laurea's Words
lackadaisical, laelia, laurel, frippery, lascivious, cacophony, effectuate, leukorrhea, kerfluffle, nickelodeon, garrulous, onomastics and 63 more...
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persistence of vision
pertaining to optical devices developed to entertain and amuse
thaumatrope, zoetrope, mutoscope, stroboscope, praxinoscope, cycloidotrope, eidotrope, chromatrope, nickelodeon, kinescope, zoopraxiscope, magic lantern
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Dewdroppers, Waldos, and Slackers
A decade-by-decade guide to the vanishing vocabulary of the 20th century. From Rosemarie Ostler's book of the same name.
nickelodeon, ivory tickler, alley-oop, horse opera, gun opera, boffo, boston version, jitney, cakewalk, tin lizzie, automobubbling, shirtwaist and 21 more...
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Proto-Cinema
magic lantern, robertson's phant..., zoopraxiscope, ombres chinoises, electro-radiant, kinescope, triplexicon, nickelodeon, chromatrope, eidotrope, cycloidotrope, praxinoscope and 6 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for nickelodeon.

chained_bear I question the 1888 date of this word, though I have no doubt it was listed somewhere (dictionary?) with that date. In its earliest usage, the word referred to the machines (Kinetoscopes), not to the parlors where they were lined up to maximize audience (only one person at a time could view the earliest motion pictures). (See Kinetoscope for more.) Jan 20, 2009
nycanthro 1888, "motion picture theater," from nickel "five-cent coin" (the cost to view one) + -odeon, as in Melodeon (1840) "music hall," ult. from Gk. oideion "building for musical performances." Meaning "nickel jukebox" is first attested 1938. (From etymonline.com) Jan 20, 2009