film-strip (n.)

Old English filmen "membrane, thin skin, foreskin," from West Germanic *filminjan (source also of Old Frisian filmene "skin," Old English fell "hide"), extended from Proto-Germanic *fello(m) "animal hide," from PIE root *pel- (3) "skin, hide."

Sense of "a thin coat of something" is 1570s, extended by 1845 to the coating of chemical gel on photographic plates. By 1895 this also meant the coating plus the paper or celluloid. Hence "a motion picture" (1905); sense of "film-making as a craft or art" is from 1920.

"long, narrow, flat piece," mid-15c., "narrow piece of cloth," probably related to or from Middle Low German strippe "strap, thong," and from the same source as stripe (n.1). Sense extension to wood, land, etc. first recorded 1630s.

Sense in comic strip is from 1920. Airport sense is from 1936; race track sense from 1941. Meaning "street noted for clubs, bars, etc." is attested from 1939, originally in reference to Los Angeles' Sunset Strip. Strip mine (n.) attested by 1892, as a verb by 1916; so called because the surface material is removed in successive parallel strips.