stylistic:tone, structural:summarization
Terminology

A movie theater might also be referred to as a movie house, film house, film theater, cinema or picture house. In the US, theater has long been the preferred spelling, while in the UK, Australia, Canada and elsewhere it is theatre.

However, some US theaters opt to use the British spelling in their own names, a practice supported by the National Association of Theatre Owners, while apart from Anglophone North America most English-speaking countries use the term cinema / ˈ s ɪ n ɪ m ə /, alternatively spelled and pronounced kinema / ˈ k ɪ n ɪ m ə /. The latter terms, as well as their derivative adjectives "cinematic" and "kinematic", ultimately derive from Greek κίνημα, κινήματος (kinema, kinematos)—"movement, motion". In the countries where those terms are used, the word "theatre" is usually reserved for live performance venues.

Colloquial expressions, mostly applied to motion pictures and motion picture theaters collectively, include the silver screen (formerly sometimes sheet) and the big screen (contrasted with the smaller screen of a television set). Specific to North American term is the movies, while specific terms in the UK are the pictures, the flicks and for the facility itself the flea pit (or fleapit). A screening room is a small theater, often a private one, such as for the use of those involved in the production of motion pictures or in a large private residence.

The etymology of the term "movie theater" involves the term "movie", which is a "shortened form of moving picture in the cinematographic sense" that was first used in 1896 and "theater", which originated in the "...late 14c., open air place in ancient times for viewing spectacles and plays". The term "theater" comes from the Old French word "theatre", from the 12th century and "...directly from Latin theatrum 'play-house, theater; stage; spectators in a theater'", which in turn came from the Greek word "theatron", which meant "theater; the people in the theater; a show, a spectacle", literally "place for viewing". The use of the word "theatre" to mean a "building where plays are shown" dates from the 1570s in the English language.