picture Hear it!

picture Definition

pic·ture (pik′c̸hər)

noun

    1. an image or likeness of an object, person, or scene produced on a flat surface, esp. by painting, drawing, or photography
    2. a printed reproduction of this
  2. anything closely resembling or strikingly typifying something else; perfect likeness or image to be the picture of one's mother, the picture of health
  3. anything regarded as having the compositional beauty of a painting or drawing
  4. a mental image or impression; idea
  5. a vivid or detailed description a picture of the times
  6. all the facts or conditions of an event, collectively; situation
  7. tableau
  8. film ()
  9. the image on a television screen

Etymology: ME pycture < L pictura < pictus, pp. of pingere, to paint

transitive verb -·tured, -·tur·ing

  1. to make a picture of by painting, drawing, photographing, etc.
  2. to make visible; show clearly; reflect
  3. to describe or explain
  4. to form a mental picture or impression of; imagine

picture Idioms

in (or out of) the picture

considered (or not considered) as involved in a situation

picture Synonyms

picture

n.

  1. A scene before the eye or the imagination

    spectacle, panorama, pageant; see view 1.

  2. A human likeness

    portrait, representation, photo, photograph, snapshot, cartoon, image, effigy, icon, statue, statuette, figure, figurine, close-up.

  3. A pictorial representation

    illustration, engraving, etching, woodcut, cut, outline, cartoon, hologram, draft, crayon sketch, pastel, water color, aquarelle, poster, graph, oil, mezzotint, chart, map, plot, trademark, mosaic, blueprint, tapestry, showcard, advertisement, aquatint, aquatone, facsimile, animation, tracing, photograph, lithograph, zinc etching, photoengraving, collotype, halftone, rotogravure, print, ad*, pix*, still*, commercial*; see also design 1, drawing 2, painting 1.

    Types of pictures, as works of art, include: landscape, seascape, cityscape, farmscape, snowscape, skyscape, genre painting, chiaroscuro, historical work, religious work, madonna, ascension, annunciation, Last Judgment, crucifixion; birth of Christ, battle scene, triumphal entry, detail, veronica, vernicle, icon, illumination, cameo, miniature, portrait, silhouette, self-portrait, illustration, danse macabre (French), nude, fresco, mural, collage, pin-up, figure, still life, center spread, animal picture, hunting print, fashion plate, diorama, panorama, photomural, photomontage, papier collé (French).

  4. A motion picture

    cinema, film, cartoon; see movie.

  5. A description

    depiction, delineation, portrayal; see description 1.

  6. *Adequate comprehension; usually with the

    idea, understanding, survey; see knowledge 1.

in the picture*

involved, concerned, part of; see considered 1.

out of the picture*

immaterial, not considered, unimportant; see irrelevant.

picture Synonyms

picture

v.

  1. To depict

    sketch, delineate, portray; see draw 2.

  2. To imagine

    portray, create, conceive; see imagine 1.

picture Usage Examples

Converse of object

  • paint: It's like having two artists painting the same picture.
  • draw: The children were asked to draw a picture of what moving home meant to them.
  • see: We've seen the pictures; we've noticed you in the malls.
  • take: Here are a few pictures taken during the process.
  • send: Send one picture of the exterior of your premises.
  • get: I will get a picture to you on how they looked.

Preposition: on

  • left: Head through the gateway picture on left and continue up the road.

Adjective modifier

  • big: However, he devotes the book to giving the big picture.
  • accurate: Job Analysis To recruit the right person requires an accurate picture of the job itself and the skills and attributes it demands.
  • clear: Paul had a clear picture of his identity in God.
  • vivid: Mr. Chairman, events of the last few years in Indonesia paint a vivid picture of a state struggling to regain stability.
  • overall: The program also gives homogenized feedback to the teacher, providing an overall picture of what is going on in their classes.
  • detailed: Click on thumbnails ( above ) for detailed pictures of two of the stones, and here for more pictures and information on Callanish.

Modifies a noun

  • gallery: We also have pictures of some of them in our hedge picture gallery.
  • frame: And then there are things like picture frames, vases, books, candles and the like.
  • quality: In addition, the quality judgements are intended to be made entirely on the basis of the picture quality.
  • book: MORE » Princess Primrose Two quality picture books by Vivian French, both with striking illustrations.
  • window: The new trains are smooth and quiet, easy to board and have giant picture windows.

Noun used with modifier

  • motion: Original music will be composed by Terry Davies who will also adapt musical themes from the motion picture composed by Danny Elfman.
  • close-up: Auto parts co inc as state farm rates a weekly close-up pictures of.
picture Quotes

Expression, for me, does not reside in passions glowing ina humanface or manifested by violent movement.The entirearrangement of my picture isexpressive: theplace occupied by the figures, the empty spaces around them, the proportions, everything has its share.

—Matisse, Henri EŁ  mile Beno|"  t

I always try to write as good as the best picture that was ever painted.

—Hemingway, Ernest Millar

Perhaps the artist who seeks dignity above all in his 'historia', ought to represent very few figures; for as paucity of words imparts majesty to a prince, provided histhoughts and orders are understood, so the presence of only the strictly necessary numbers of bodies confers dignity on a picture.

—Alberti, Leon Battista

Omnis mundi creatura Quasi liber et pictura Nobis est, et speculum. Each creature of the world Is as a book, a picture, And a mirror to us.

—Alan of Lille also known as  'Alanus de Insulis'

When I set down to make a sketch from nature, the first thing Itry to do istoforgetthat Ihave ever seena picture.

—Constable,John

The main thing a musician would like to do is to give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things he knows and senses in the universe.

—Coltrane,John

The Last Picture Show.

—McMurtry, LarryJeff

The function of news is to signalize an event, the functionoftruth istobring to lightthehiddenfacts, toset them into relationwith each other, and make a picture of reality on which men can act.Only at those points, where social conditions take recognizable and measurable shape, do the body of truth and the body of news coincide.

—Lippmann,Walter

Making a picture with Marilyn Monroe was like going to the dentist. It was hell at thetime, but after it was all over it was wonderful.

—Wilder, Billy (Samuel)

If someone was stupid enough to offer me a million dollars to make a pictureöI was certainly not dumb enough to turn it down.

—Taylor, Elizabeth Rosemond

Dass nicht alles auf einmal da ist, bleibt als Bedingung des Lebens und der Erz a« hlung zu achten, und man wird sich doch wohl gegen die gottgegebenen Formen menschlicher Erkenntnis nich auflehnen wollen. Let usnot forgetthe conditionof lifeasnarration: that we can never see the whole picture at onceöunless we propose to throw overboard all the God-conditioned forms of human knowledge.

—Mann,Thomas

At a certain moment the canvas began to appear to one American painter after another as an arena in which to actörather than as a space in which to reproduce, re-design, analyze or 'express'an object, actual or imagined.What was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event.

—Rosenberg, Harold

One picture is worth ten thousand words.

—Barnard, Frederick R

The crucified Jesus is the only accurate picture of God the world has ever seen.

—Baker,John Austin

Mr Lely, I desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me, otherwise I will never paya farthing for it.

—Cromwell, Oliver

The movie-makers are able to put more reality into a picture about theterrors of life at the ocean bottom than into a tale of two Milwaukeeans in love.

—Hecht, Ben

That is the best part of beauty, which a picture cannot express.

—Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans

A picture is finished when all trace of the means used to bring about the end has disappeared.

—Whistler,James (Abbott) McNeill

All my life I've beenworking on the worköevery canvas a sentence or paragraph of it. Each picture is onlyan approximation of what I want.

—Motherwell, Robert

The identifying ourselves with the visual image of ourselves has become an instinct; the habit is already old. The picture of me, the me that is seen, is me.

—Lawrence, D(avid) H(erbert)

   If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human faceöfor ever.

—Orwell, George pseudonym of  Eric Arthur Blair

I want every family in America to have a carpet on the floor and a picture on the wall. After bread, you've got to have a picture on the wall.

—Johnson, Lyndon B(aines) also called LBJ

   A picture that is beautiful, or that comes off, or that works, looks as if it was all made at one stroke.

—Frankenthaler, Helen

I regret very much that I have painted a picture that requires any description.

—Homer,Winslow

In fact we do not try to picture the afterlife, nor is it our selves in our nervous tics and optical flecks that we wish to perpetuate; it is the self as the window on the world that we can't bear to thinkof shutting.

—Updike,John Hoyer

  Painting is nothing but a representation of surfaces and solidsforeshortenedorenlarged, and putontheplaneof the picture in accordance with the fashion in which the real objects seen by the eye appear on this plane.

—Piero della Francesca

Each individual work serves as an expression of our most personal state of mind at that particular moment and of the inescapable, imperative need for release by means of an appropriate act of creation: in the rhythm, form, colour and mood of a picture.

—Feininger, Lyonel

Poetry therefore, is an art of imitation† A speaking picture, with this end: to teach and delight.

—Sidney, Sir Philip

The more successful the villain, the more successful the picture.

—Hitchcock, SirAlfred Joseph

It isno more easy to make a good picture than it isto find a diamond or a pearl. It means trouble and you risk your life for it.

—van Gogh,Vincent

His writing bears the same relation to poetry which a Turkey carpet bears to a picture.

—1st Baron

Johnny, keep it out of focus. I want to win the foreign picture award.

—Wilder, Billy (Samuel)