depict

verb, adj — 2 senses

depict

verb

/dɪˈpɪkt/ · [dɪˈpɪkt]

Etymology From Middle English depicten, from Latin dēpictus, from dēpingō.

1

To render a representation of something, using words, sounds, images, or other means.

  • And by [these Embassadours] he sent to their master a Tent, wherein the history of the Bible was as richly as curiously depicted in needle-work;1639, Thomas Fuller, The Historie of the Holy Warre, Cambridge, Book 4, Chapter 12, p. 189:
  • The Spring, when all its beauties rise, I see depicted in your eyes1770, Thomas Chatterton, The Auction, a Poem: A Familiar Epistle to a Friend, London: George Kearsly:
4 more examples
  • At first, I believe, I answered her very incoherently, for I observed alarm beginning to depict itself upon her countenance.1851, George Borrow, chapter XXIV, in Lavengro; the Scholar—the Gypsy—the Priest. […], volume II, London: John Murray […], →OCLC, page 212:
  • The well-known words depict a woman seeking sanctuary in a love relationship form a brutal, rapacious man.1984, Lawrence Starr, “Toward a Reevaluation of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess”, in American Music, volume 2, number 2, page 27:
  • Here the music depicts the delicate pattern of ice on windows.1987, Niall O'Loughlin, “Music Reviews: 20th-century guitar”, in The Musical Times, volume 128, number 1734, page 443:
  • 1994, E. Pennisi, "Breathe (xenon) deeply to see lungs clearly," Science News, vol. 146, no. 5, p. 70 (caption), False-color computer images depict lungs removed from a mouse.
Derived terms
depictable, depictee, depicter, depictor, redepict, undepicted
Related terms
depiction, depictive

depict

adj

Etymology From Middle English depicten, from Latin dēpictus, from dēpingō.

1

Obsolete Depicted.

  • Early 1400s, John Lydgate, “The Concords of Company” in James Orchard Halliwell (ed.), A Selection from the Minor Poems of Dan John Lydgate, London: The Percy Society, 1840, p. 177, I fond a lyknesse depict upon a wal, Armed in vertues, as I walk up and doun, The hed of thre ful solempne and roial, Intellectus, memorye, and resoun;

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.

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