daguerrotype

Noun

daguerreotype (plural daguerreotypes)

1. An early type of photograph created by exposing a silver surface which has previously been exposed to either iodine vapor or iodine and bromine vapors; such a photograph.
   • The awakening of science to this new way of seeing the cosmos began with Johann Ritter in 1801. By 1815, scientists found that Ritter's “chemical rays” [ultraviolet rays] darkened not just silver chloride but also many other kinds of metallic salts. Between 1826 and 1837, Nicéphore Niépce, credited...2017, Bob Berman, Zapped: From Infrared to X-rays, the Curious History of Invisible Light, Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, page 72
2. The process of making such photographs.
3. (figuratively, obsolete) A faithful or exact representation or description.
   • What was most admired was the facade of the great and ancient Gothic church of St. Mary,—which was reflected with such exactness that it appeared to be a daguerreotype design; so that all the lines and contours of the innumerable ornaments which cover this facade, were distinguished with ease.1846, editorial staff, “A City in the Air”, in Scientific American, series 1, Volume 2, Issue 13, page 101

See all 5 meanings of daguerreotype