When referring to a version of a specific film, what does anamorphic mean in layman's techical terms?

Answer 1

The normal picture frame for TV use is a 4:3 display. However if the frame is squished horizontally, that is called anamorphic. A typical HD display can un-squish it to make it widescreen 16:9. this is higher resolution than letterbox widescreen because the entire picture frame is used.

Anamorphic lenses are also used in motion picture film to allow a regular projector to display a widescreen movie.