Jump cut
Etymology
A 20th-century film-editing compound of "jump" and "cut." It originally described a technical fault — a discontinuity that broke the illusion of smooth time — before filmmakers, notably Godard in "Breathless" (1960), adopted it on purpose.
noun phrase · /JUHMP KUHT/
An edit between two shots of the same subject that skips forward in time, making the image appear to jump.
What it names
The deliberate visual hiccup — once an error, now a style — behind the restless energy of much modern video, from the French New Wave to talking-head YouTube.
Example
The video’s constant jump cuts trim every pause, so the speaker never seems to breathe.
Related idea
A jump cut breaks continuity within one scene; a cut in general is simply any instantaneous transition from one shot to another. The plain cut aims to be invisible; the jump cut announces itself.