special effect

1. 1.

   an effect used to produce scenes that cannot be achieved by normal techniques (especially on film)

   Broadereffect

   Narrowerstage effect

Questions about special effect

What does special effect mean?

special effect means "an effect used to produce scenes that cannot be achieved by normal techniques (especially on film)".

Is special effect a common word?

special effect is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.