Word.ws English Dictionary

Zapruder

/zəˈpɹuːdə(ɹ)/

Zapruder verb: to mesmerize; to fascinate.

Verb

Zapruder (third-person singular simple present Zapruders, present participle Zaprudering, simple past and past participle Zaprudered)

  1. (transitive) To mesmerize; to fascinate.
    • Zaprudered into surreal dimensions of purest speculation, ghost-narratives have emerged and taken on shadowy but determined lives of their own, but Cayce is familiar with them all, and steers clear.2003, William Gibson, Pattern Recognition (Bigend cycle; book 1), New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, →ISBN, page 24
    • "[…] In a sense, we've all been 'Zaprudered,'" he said. "The film was so graphic, disturbing, mesmerizing, that it became more of our perspective on the assassination than even the perspective of the assassin, which should never have happened."2011 November 18, “Historians Claim New Research Shows Oswald Acted Alone in JFK Assassination”, in Fox News
  2. (transitive) To study (a piece of footage) closely.
    • Ah, well; at least 'shippers can stop Zaprudering old episodes to figure out whether Logan and Veronica have done it.2006 October 3, Alan Sepinwall, “Veronica Mars: Boom goes the dynamite”, in What's Alan Watching?
    • Perhaps they had a fleet of bilingual fact-checkers on the case, carefully Zaprudering the Chávez video to determine what exactly was said.2006 October 9, Benjamin Zimmer, “Chomsky killed by interpreter?”, in Language Log

Examples of Zapruder in a sentence

  • He mulls whether to try changing history — removing that ugly watershed moment from American history, de-Zaprudering us all in the process — or to stand back.2014 September 23, Zach Dionne, “Stephen King, Roving Format Dabbler, Is Coming to Hulu With ‘11/22/63’”, in Grantland:
  • Why, Zapruder the heck out of the invite of course.2010 January 18, Erica Sadun, “Zaprudering the invite: Obsessive fun with TUAW”, in TUAW:
  • It’s hard to tell in the original, so we’ve Zaprudered it for you to make it easier to tell where the punches occurred:2013 November 24, Tommy Christopher, “Video: Alex Jones Gets ‘Punched’ by ‘Rampaging’ Police at Dallas JFK Protest”, in Mediaite:
  • But why are photos of a 12-year-old girl being Zaprudered in this manner to begin with?2014 March 25, Daniel D'Addario, “Sasha Obama "is not impressed" in China -- but leave her alone!”, in Salon:

Forms of Zapruder

third-person singular presentZapruders
present participleZaprudering
past participleZaprudered
pastZaprudered

Origin of Zapruder

Named after Abraham Zapruder, who shot the footage of the 1963 assassination of the President of the United States John F. Kennedy known as the Zapruder film.

Questions about Zapruder

What does Zapruder mean?
Zapruder means to mesmerize; to fascinate.
How do you use Zapruder in a sentence?
He mulls whether to try changing history — removing that ugly watershed moment from American history, de-Zaprudering us all in the process — or to stand back.
What part of speech is Zapruder?
Zapruder is a verb.
How do you pronounce Zapruder?
Zapruder is pronounced /zəˈpɹuːdə(ɹ)/.
What is the past tense of Zapruder?
The past tense of Zapruder is Zaprudered.

Words near Zapruder in the dictionary

  1. zappy
  2. Zaprešić
  3. zaprinast
  4. zaprorid
  5. zaprorids
  6. Zapruder
  7. Zaprudered
  8. Zapruderian
  9. Zaprudering
  10. Zapruders
  11. Zaprudka

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Zapruder (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: “Zapruder.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/zapruder. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.