Word.ws English Dictionary

bullet time

bullet time noun: a visual effect in which the camera pans around a slowed-down object, such as a flying bullet.

Noun

bullet time (uncountable)

  1. A visual effect in which the camera pans around a slowed-down object, such as a flying bullet.
    • ...particularly in the use of the bullet-time technique...2006, Dani Cavallaro, The Cinema of Mamoru Oshii: Fantasy, Technology and Politics
  2. A mode in which gameplay slows down to allow the player to observe and maneuver around bullets or other fast moving objects.

Origin of bullet time

First used with reference to the 1999 film The Matrix, and later to the slow-motion effects in the 2001 video game Max Payne.

Questions about bullet time

What does bullet time mean?
Bullet time means a visual effect in which the camera pans around a slowed-down object, such as a flying bullet.
What part of speech is bullet time?
Bullet time is a noun.

Words near bullet time in the dictionary

  1. bullet payments
  2. bullet point
  3. bullet points
  4. bullet sponge
  5. bullet sponges
  6. bullet time
  7. bullet trade
  8. bullet trades
  9. bullet train
  10. bullet trains
  11. bullet tree

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bullet time (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “bullet time.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bullet_time. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.