PICTURE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Picture

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/pˈɪktʃər/ Listen

noun

Picture n.

1.

The art of painting; representation by painting. (Obs.) "Any well-expressed image... either in picture or sculpture."

2.

A representation of anything (as a person, a landscape, a building) upon canvas, paper, or other surface, produced by means of painting, drawing, engraving, photography, etc.; a representation in colors. By extension, a figure; a model. "Pictures and shapes are but secondary objects." "The young king's picture... in virgin wax."

3.

An image or resemblance; a representation, either to the eye or to the mind; that which, by its likeness, brings vividly to mind some other thing; as, a child is the picture of his father; the man is the picture of grief. "My eyes make pictures when they are shut." Note: Picture is often used adjectively, or in forming self-explaining compounds; as, picture book or picture-book, picture frame or picture-frame, picture seller or picture-seller, etc.

Animated picture, a moving picture.

Picture gallery, a gallery, or large apartment, devoted to the exhibition of pictures.

Picture red, a rod of metal tube fixed to the walls of a room, from which pictures are hung.

Picture writing.

(a)

The art of recording events, or of expressing messages, by means of pictures representing the actions or circumstances in question.

(b)

The record or message so represented; as, the picture writing of the American Indians.

Synonyms: Picture, Painting. Every kind of representation by drawing or painting is a picture, whether made with oil colors, water colors, pencil, crayons, or India ink; strictly, a painting is a picture made by means of colored paints, usually applied moist with a brush.

verb

Picture v. t. (past & past part. pictured; pres. part. picturing) To draw or paint a resemblance of; to delineate; to represent; to form or present an ideal likeness of; to bring before the mind. "I... do picture it in my mind." "I have not seen him so pictured."

See images of 'Picture'

Etymology of 'Picture'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Picture" Quotes from Famous Books

... ponderous oaken bench, and upon this old Russell seated himself wearily. Here he sat, and as Harry completed his survey of the apartment, his eyes rested upon his unfortunate companion as he sat there, the picture of terror, despondency, and misery. Harry felt an involuntary pity for the man; and as his own flow of spirits was unfailing, he set himself to work to try ...

— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille

... soon judge of your value by your adroitness, and you can make your own record!" smiled the strange woman waif. "Let me see how you would do this! I do not care to personally approach Mademoiselle Euphrosyne Delande, I would have a picture of the woman whom I seek—the lonely child whom I have hungered for long years to see! I do not ...

— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... doubter in Europe or America, nor even in the London Clubs! Yet each time I read the cunning article (I have less hair than when I ran away from Sandhurst that exciting July night and met you in the Strand!), and look upon the picture of the man, John Henry Smith, "before and after using," I admit the birth of an unreasonable belief that there may be something ...

— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood

... She will demand to be taken everywhere—to Paris continually, of course; to all the stock shrines of history's devotees; to palaces and prisons; to kings' tombs and queens' tombs; to cemeteries and picture- galleries, and royal hunting forests. My poor mother, having gone over most of this ground many times before, will perhaps not find the perambulation so exhilarating as will Caroline herself. I wish I could have gone with them. I would not have minded having my legs walked off to please Caroline. ...

— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy

... become arrogant and corrupt. All this helped to explain the strength of such revolts as that of the Liberal Republican movement of 1872. Nevertheless, during the greater part of the twenty-five years after the war, hosts of Republicans cherished such a picture as that drawn by Senator Hoar and Edward MacPherson, and it was that picture which held them within the party and made patriotism and Republicanism ...

— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley

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