1953, proprietary name for wide-screen movie technology; see cinema + scope (n.2).
Entries linking to cinemascope
cinema n.
1899, "movie hall," from French cinéma, shortened from cinématographe "device for projecting a series of photographs in rapid succession so as to produce the illusion of movement," coined 1890s by Lumiere brothers, who invented the technology, from Latinized form of Greek kinēmat-, combining form of kinēma "movement," from kinein "to move" (from PIE root *keie- "to set in motion"). For the second element in the French compound, see -graphy.
The word was earlier in English in its fuller form, cinematograph (1896), but this has been displaced by the short form. Other old words for such a system were vitascope (Edison, 1895), animatograph (1898). The meaning "movies collectively, especially as an art form" recorded by 1914. Cinéma vérité is 1963, from French.
scope n.2
[instrument for viewing] 1872, shortened from telescope, microscope, etc., in which the element (Latinized) is from Greek skopein "to look" (from PIE root *spek- "to observe"). Earlier used as a shortening of horoscope (c. 1600). Extended to radar screens, etc., by 1945 as a shortening of oscilloscope.