Droste effect

/ˈdɹɔstə əˈfɛkt/

Droste effect noun: the effect of a picture appearing within itself recursively, so that the inner picture contains another even smaller picture, and so on.

Image: Designer: Jan Misset Uploader: Alf van Beem, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

Droste effect (plural Droste effects)

The effect of a picture appearing within itself recursively, so that the inner picture contains another even smaller picture, and so on.

Synonyms:

mise en abyme

Synonyms of Droste effect

mise en abyme

Forms of Droste effect

plural	Droste effects

Origin of Droste effect

Droste + effect, from Dutch Droste, from German Droste. From the image used on Droste-brand cocoa powder, one of the main Dutch brands, of a nurse carrying a serving tray with a cup of hot chocolate and a box with the same image. Named after Dutch businessman Gerardus Johannes Droste who founded the company in 1863.

Questions about Droste effect

What does Droste effect mean?: Droste effect means the effect of a picture appearing within itself recursively, so that the inner picture contains another even smaller picture, and so on.
What part of speech is Droste effect?: Droste effect is a noun.
How do you pronounce Droste effect?: Droste effect is pronounced /ˈdɹɔstə əˈfɛkt/.
What is the plural of Droste effect?: The plural of Droste effect is Droste effects.

Words near Droste effect in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: Droste effect (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “Droste effect.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/droste_effect. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.