Word.ws English Dictionary

pen pictures

pen pictures is the plural of pen picture.

Meaning of pen picture

Noun

pen picture (plural pen pictures)

  1. (idiomatic) A written description, often biographical.
    • Mr. [Timothy Shay] Arthur has been, and is, a close observer, and in his pictures of domestic life, his groups include all the necessary characters, while the back ground and filling up take in all the accessories and incidentals, which, skilfully managed, give a pen-picture its vraisemblance.1842 April 30, “Six Nights with the Washingtonians: A Series of Original Temperance Tales. New York: Curry & Co., 155 Broadway [book review]”, in Brother Jonathan, volume II, number 1, New York...
    Synonyms:
    pen portrait, sketch
  2. (archaic, idiomatic) A picture drawn with a pen.
    Synonyms:
    pen portrait

Questions about pen pictures

What is pen pictures the plural of?
Pen pictures is the plural of pen picture.

Words near pen pictures in the dictionary

  1. pen palling
  2. pen pals
  3. pen pencil
  4. pen pencils
  5. pen picture
  6. pen pictures
  7. pen portrait
  8. pen portraits
  9. pen pusher
  10. pen pushers
  11. pen register

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pen pictures (page history and authors); pen picture (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “pen pictures.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pen_pictures. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.