Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Thaumatrope

Thaumatrope (tha"mȧ*trōp) , noun

[Greek qay^ma a wonder + tre`pein to turn.]

(Optics) An optical instrument or toy for showing the persistence of an impression upon the eyes after the luminous object is withdrawn.

It consists of a card having on its opposite faces figures of two different objects, or halves of the same object, as a bird and a cage, which, when the card is whirled rapidly round a diameter by the strings that hold it, appear to the eye combined in a single picture, as of a bird in its cage.