different between silhouette vs kaleidoscope

English

Alternative forms

• silhouet

Etymology

Borrowed from French silhouette, from the name of Étienne de Silhouette (1709-1767), a French politician. His surname, in turn, is (gallicized) Basque, from Ziloeta or Zilhoeta, from zulo (“hole, cave”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?s?.l??w?t/, /?s?.l??w?t/, /?s?.lu??w?t/
• Rhymes: -?t

Noun

silhouette (plural silhouettes)

1. An illustrated outline filled in with a solid color(s), usually only black, and intended to represent the shape of an object without revealing any other visual details; a similar appearance produced when the object being viewed is situated in relative darkness with brighter lighting behind it; a profile portrait in black, such as a shadow appears to be. [mid 19th c.]

   I could see a silhouette of a figure looking out from the window, but I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman.

Translations

Verb

silhouette (third-person singular simple present silhouettes, present participle silhouetting, simple past and past participle silhouetted)

1. To represent by a silhouette; to project upon a background, so as to be like a silhouette. [late 19th c.]
   • 1929, Robert Dean Frisbee, The Book of Puka-Puka (republished by Eland, 2019; p. 35):

     Scores of coconut-shell fires blazed with their characteristic glaring white flame, throwing grotesque shadows on the brown thatched huts, dancing fairylike shimmerings among the domes of coconut fronds, casting ghostly reaches of light through the adjacent graveyards, and silhouetting the forms of pareu-clad natives at work cleaning their fish or laying them on the live coals to broil.

Further reading

• silhouette on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Étienne de Silhouette on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

French

Etymology

From Silhouette, after Étienne de Silhouette, a French politician, from Basque.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /si.lw?t/, /si.lu.?t/

Noun

silhouette f (plural silhouettes)

1. silhouette

Verb

silhouette

1. inflection of silhouetter:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

Further reading

• “silhouette” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

English

Alternative forms

• caleidoscope

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ????? (kalós, “beautiful”) + ????? (eîdos, “shape”) (compare -oid) +? -scope. Coined 1817, by David Brewster, its inventor.

Figurative sense of “constantly changing pattern” attested 1819 by Lord Byron, who had received a kaleidoscope from his publisher.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /k??la?d??sko?p/

Noun

kaleidoscope (plural kaleidoscopes)

1. A tube of mirrors containing loose coloured beads etc. that is rotated to produce a succession of symmetrical designs.
2. (figuratively) A constantly changing set of colours, or other things.

Derived terms

• kaleidoscopelike
• kaleidoscopic
• teleidoscope

Translations

Further reading

• kaleidoscope on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons

Verb

kaleidoscope (third-person singular simple present kaleidoscopes, present participle kaleidoscoping, simple past and past participle kaleidoscoped)

1. (intransitive) To move in shifting patterns.

References

• “kaleidoscope”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.