• Picture

    Pronunciation

    • RP IPA: /ˈpɪktʃə/
    • GenAm IPA: /ˈpɪk(t)ʃɚ/
    • Rhymes: -ɪktʃə(ɹ)

    Origin

    From Middle English pycture, from Old French picture, from Latin pictūra ("the art of painting, a painting"), from pingō ("I paint").

    Full definition of picture

    Noun

    picture

    (plural pictures)
    1. A representation of anything (as a person, a landscape, a building) upon canvas, paper, or other surface, by drawing, painting, printing, photography, etc.
      • 2012-03, w, Pixels or Perish, Drawings and pictures are more than mere ornaments in scientific discourse. Blackboard sketches, geological maps, diagrams of molecular structure, astronomical photographs, MRI images, the many varieties of statistical charts and graphs: These pictorial devices are indispensable tools for presenting evidence, for explaining a theory, for telling a story.
    2. An image; a representation as in the imagination.
      • ColeridgeMy eyes make pictures when they are shut.
      • 2007, The Workers' RepublicPrior to seeing him and meeting him, and hearing him speak, I had conjured up a picture of him in my mind, which actual contact with him proved to be an illusion. I had conceived of him...as being tall, commanding, and as the advance notices of him, a sliver-tongued orator. I found him, however, to be the opposite of my mental picture; short, squat, unpretentious ...
    3. A painting.
      • 1963, Margery Allingham, The China Governess Chapter 3, Here the stripped panelling was warmly gold and the pictures, mostly of the English school, were mellow and gentle in the afternoon light.
    4. There was a picture hanging above the fireplace.
    5. A photograph.
      I took a picture of the church.
    6. (informal) A motion picture.
      Casablanca ''is my all-time favorite picture.
    7. (dated, informal) "the pictures" Cinema as a form of entertainment
      Let's go to the pictures.
    8. A paragon, a perfect example or specimen (of a category).
      She's the very picture of health.
    9. The art of painting; representation by painting.
      • Sir H. Wottonany well-expressed image ... either in picture or sculpture
    10. A figure; a model.
      • Howellthe young king's picture ... in virgin wax

    Synonyms

    • (representation as in the imagination) image

    Verb

    1. (transitive) To represent in or with a picture.
      • 1966, Margaret Naumburg, Dynamically oriented art therapy, What is striking about the self portrait is that the patient had pictured herself as a much younger woman
      • 1962, w:Vladimir Nabokov, w, while upon the shaded top of the box, drawn in perspective, the artist had pictured a plate with the beautifully executed, twin-lobed, brainlike, halved kernel of a walnut.
      • 1999, Lisa Gitelman, Scripts, grooves, and writing machines, Anyone "skilled in the art" could see from their language that Lemp and Wightman had not invented or patented the invention their draftsman had pictured.
    2. (transitive) To imagine or envision.
      • 1967, John Lennon, , , released on ,Picture yourself on a boat on a river
        With tangerine trees and marmalade skies,
    3. (transitive) To depict.
      • 1985, Edmund Burke Feldman, Thinking about art‎, Drawing is picturing people, places, and things with line.
      • 1989, Jan Jelínek, The great art of the early Australians, Many rock paintings picture various species of fish.
      • 2004, Helen South, The everything drawing book, The sketch pictured here takes in the whole scene.

    Anagrams

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