display
verbEtymology From Middle English displayen, from Anglo-Norman despleier and Old French despleier, desploiier, from Medieval Latin displicare (“to unfold, display”), from Latin dis- (“apart”) + plicāre (“to fold”). Doublet of deploy.
1
To show conspicuously; to exhibit; to demonstrate; to manifest.
- All this was extraordinarily distasteful to Churchill. It was ugly, gross. Never before had he felt such repulsion when the vicar displayed his characteristic bluntness or coarseness of speech. In the present connexion […] such talk had been distressingly out of place.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
- The huge square box, parquet-floored and high-ceilinged, had been arranged to display a suite of bedroom furniture designed and made in the halcyon days of the last quarter of the nineteenth century,[…].1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 1, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
2
To make a display; to act as one making a show or demonstration.
- Being the very fellow which of late / Diſplaid ſo ſawcily againſt your Highneſſe […]c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iv], page 293:
3
Government, Military, Politics, War To extend the front of (a column), bringing it into line, deploy.
- The Englishmen[…]display their ranks and[…]press hard upon their enemies.1610, William Camden, translated by Philémon Holland, Britain, or A Chorographicall Description of the Most Flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland, […], London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press for] Georgii Bishop & Ioannis Norton, →OCLC:
4
Media, Printing, Publishing Dated To make conspicuous by using large or prominent type.
5
Obsolete To discover; to descry.
- And from his seat took pleasure to display / The city so adorned with towers.[1611?], Homer, “(please specify |book=I to XXIV)”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., The Iliads of Homer Prince of Poets. […], London: […] Nathaniell Butter, →OCLC; republished as The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets, […], new edition, volume (please specify the book number), London: Charles Knight and Co., […], 1843, →OCLC:
6
Obsolete To spread out, to unfurl.
- The wearie Traueiler, wandring that way, / Therein did often quench his thristy heat, / And then by it his wearie limbes display, / Whiles creeping slomber made him to forget / His former paine [...].1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- Derived terms
42 terms
affect display, air display, codisplay, courtship display, DISP, displayability, displayable, display cabinet, display case, displayer, display kerchief, display list, display tearing, display window, ferroelectric liquid-crystal display, field emission display, fireworks display, heads-up display, head-up display, holodisplay, liquid crystal display, microdisplay, misdisplay, nondisplayed, on display, organic electroluminescent display, pay-and-display, pay and display, plasma display, predisplay, public display of affection, redisplay, refreshable display, semi-display, shoulder display, starburst display, surface-conduction electron-emitter display, undisplay, undisplayed, vacuum fluorescent display, visual display unit, volumetric display