Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A view or series of views of the world; specifically, an exhibition of a number of drawings, paintings, or photographs of cities, buildings, landscapes, and the like, in different parts of the world, so arranged that they are reflected from mirrors, the reflections being seen through a lens.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun An exhibition in which a series of views in various parts of the world is seen reflected by mirrors through a series of lenses, with such illumination, etc., as will make the views most closely represent reality.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun dated An exhibition of perspective images using various optical effects

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The cosmorama, the pleorama, the myriorama (to name only three) — all in various ways sought to make the visible spectacular. 8

    Making Visible: The Diorama, the Double and the (Gothic) Subject 2005

  • They should remember, what they uniformly and universally forget, that we are not invited, upon the rising of the curtain, to behold a cosmorama, or picture of the world, but a representation of that part of it called Vanity Fair.

    The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) Various 1887

  • And Raynal's cosmorama exactly hit the tastes of the hour.

    Diderot and the Encyclopædists Volume II. John Morley 1880

  • He wished that this means of mental improvement and recreation combined might be freely afforded to those whose scanty earnings would not permit them otherwise to make frequent use of it, and he resolved that the museum and the cosmorama should be included in his institution.

    Peter Cooper The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4 1879

  • From the queer mechanical devices exhibited by inventors to the "Happy Family" and the cosmorama, everything was full to his quick sympathy of intellectual, moral, or sentimental suggestion; and no doubt he felt, after an hour of such combined wonder and reflection, a satisfying sense of time well spent.

    Peter Cooper The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4 1879

  • Cooper Union was substituted for the museum; the conversation parlors for the various trades became class-rooms for instruction; the cosmorama yielded to lecture-halls and laboratories; and the roof was abandoned to the weather.

    Peter Cooper The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4 1879

  • There was also a lecture-room, devoted principally to moral melodrama; and on an upper floor a large room was occupied by the cosmorama, -- an exhibition of pictures, usually of noteworthy scenery, foreign cities, etc., which were looked at through round holes, enhancing the effect of their illumination.

    Peter Cooper The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4 1879

  • In these days we are always too late, and those marvels of the Oriental cosmorama, those curious manners, those masterpieces of

    The Adventures of a Special Correspondent Jules Verne 1866

  • They should remember, what they uniformly and universally forget, that we are not invited, upon the rising of the curtain to behold a cosmorama, or picture of the world, but a representation of that part of it called Vanity Fair.

    The Potiphar Papers George William Curtis 1858

  • A beautiful promenade near the Castle garden; visited the Museum; a large living serpent also an ant hedgehog; a good collection of stuffed birds besides, and also a cosmorama view of different cities, etc., in Europe.

    A Journey to America in 1834 Robert Heywood 1827

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  • Victorians loved their melodrama
    And spectacles like cosmorama,
    Now stale and passé;
    Amusements today
    Derive more from digits or pharma.

    November 25, 2016