cinema

English borrowed cinema from French cinéma, a clipping of cinématographe, a term the Lumière brothers coined in the 1890s. That word was built from Ancient Greek κίνημα (kínēma, "movement") and γράφω (gráphō, "write, record").

The word started as a compound naming a piece of equipment — the cinématographe, a device for recording movement — before French speakers shortened it to cinéma, and English simply borrowed the shorter form.

It shares its root with German Kino, which comes from the same Greek source, κίνημα.