Microfilming

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. This process involves the recording of documents as low-scale images on photographic film to facilitate preservation and conservation of materials
2. The technique of producing small photographic reproductions of documents on film to save space and protect originals
3. The method of capturing reduced-size images of papers or records on film for archival and safekeeping purposes

Etymology: Microfilming is a relatively modern coinage: it is simply the act of doing the thing that "microfilm" names, so its history is the history of that compound. The two halves are old, but the combination is not. "Micro-" comes from the Ancient Greek "mikros", meaning small, and entered English as a combining form used to build new scientific and technical words. "Film" has a much longer past, descending from Old English "filmen", a thin membrane or skin, and only later came to mean the thin sheet of photographic material used in cameras. Put together, "microfilm" describes a tiny photographic record on a thin sheet. The compound is built from the two parts with nothing hidden in between: small, plus thin photographic sheet. Adding "-ing" to the noun and verb yields the activity itself, the process of making such records.