Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A three-dimensional miniature or life-size scene in which figures, stuffed wildlife, or other objects are arranged in a naturalistic setting against a painted background.
- noun A scene reproduced on cloth transparencies with various lights shining through the cloths to produce changes in effect, intended for viewing at a distance through an aperture.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A spectacular painting, or a connected series of paintings, intended for exhibition to spectators in a darkened room, in a manner to produce by optical illusions an appearance of reality.
- noun A building in which dioramic paintings are exhibited.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A mode of scenic representation, invented by Daguerre and Bouton, in which a painting is seen from a distance through a large opening. By a combination of transparent and opaque painting, and of transmitted and reflected light, and by contrivances such as screens and shutters, much diversity of scenic effect is produced.
- noun A building used for such an exhibition.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
three-dimensional display of ascenery , often having apainted background in front of whichmodels arearranged , e.g. in a museum where stuffed animals are presented against a painted landscape.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a picture (or series of pictures) representing a continuous scene
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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The sheet explains the basic facts of what the diorama is about.
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Interactions in a habitat – The focus of a diorama is often to correctly identify and place the right objects for a natural habitat but you can take this to a new level by focusing on the interactions within the habitat.
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You've got your very own Pac-Man pumpkin diorama for Halloween, complete with ghost and white pellets.
Awesome Pac-Man Pumpkins For Halloween! (VIDEO) The Huffington Post News Team 2010
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In 1822, Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, who had worked in theater design and panorama painting and would later invent the daguerreotype photograph, unveiled a dazzling new spectacle he dubbed the diorama.
A Small World After All Kristin M. Jones 2011
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You've got your very own Pac-Man pumpkin diorama for Halloween, complete with ghost and white pellets.
Awesome Pac-Man Pumpkins For Halloween! (VIDEO) The Huffington Post News Team 2010
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Freezing a moment in time – A diorama is a moment in time and you can focus on this.
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In 1822, Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, who had worked in theater design and panorama painting and would later invent the daguerreotype photograph, unveiled a dazzling new spectacle he dubbed the diorama.
A Small World After All Kristin M. Jones 2011
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Achieving Depth – The most common trait of an average shoebox diorama is that it has a decorated background and objects placed on the bottom surface.
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The biggest point of a shoebox diorama is to show a natural habitat of something.
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As an example, if you are doing a polar bear or penguin diorama you could use white packing Styrofoam.
treeseed commented on the word diorama
The current, popular understanding of the term “Diorama�? denotes a partially three-dimensional, full-size replica or scale model of a landscape typically showing historical events, nature scenes or cityscapes, for purposes of education or entertainment.
_Wikipedia
February 3, 2008