Picture Meaning
/ˈpɪk.t͡ʃə/Definition, CEFR level A1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA representation of anything (as a person, a landscape, a building) upon canvas, paper, or other surface, by drawing, painting, printing, photography, etc.
nounAn image; a representation as in the imagination.
Sentence Examples
Is it a recent picture?
May I take your picture?
I could picture the scene clearly.
CEFR Practice Quiz
She drew a beautiful ____ of the sunset over the ocean.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
She hung the ____ above the fireplace where it could be seen from every corner of the room.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English pycture, from Old French picture, itself from Latin pictūra (“the art of painting, a painting”), from pingō (“to paint”). Doublet of pictura.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Orion hit a rabbit once; but though sore wounded it got to the bury, and, struggling in, the arrow caught the side of the hole and was drawn out.[…]. Ikey the blacksmith had forged us a spearhead after a sketch from a picture of a Greek warrior; and a rake-handle served as a shaft."
— 1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter II, in The Amateur Poacher, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC:
"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."
— 2012 March 26, Brian Hayes, “Pixels or Perish”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 106:
"My eyes make pictures when they are shut."
— 1828, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, A Day Dream:
"So this was my future home, I thought! Certainly it made a brave picture. I had seen similar ones fired-in on many a Heidelberg stein. Backed by towering hills,[…]a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams."
— 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:
"Prior 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[…]."
— 2007, The Workers' Republic:
Explore More A1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
She drew a beautiful ____ of the sunset over the ocean.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
She hung the ____ above the fireplace where it could be seen from every corner of the room.