celluloid

noun celluloids

1. countable, uncountable Any of a variety of thermoplastics created from nitrocellulose and camphor, once used as photographic film. 1894 June, Antonia Dickson, W. K. L. Dickson, Edison's Invention of the Kineto-Phonograph: Account of the Invention, article in Century Magazine, Volume 48, Issue 2, Then followed some experiments with drums, over which sheets of sensitized celluloid film were drawn, the edges being pressed into a n
2. attributive, countable, figuratively, often, uncountable The genre of cinema; film. Celluloid railway comedy was hardly to appear again until the mid-thirties and, later, in Britain.
3. countable, obsolete, uncountable An item, such as a jacket, made from celluloid. 'What with that bearded Assyrian bull in London, and this Thug down here, who has ruined my clean celluloid, you seem to be keeping queer company, Ted Malone.'