picture
Syllables: pic·tureUK/ˈpɪk.t͡ʃə/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
New Zealand/ˈpək.t͡ʃə/
picture noun: a representation of anything (as a person, a landscape, a building) upon canvas, paper, or other surface, by drawing, painting, printing, photography, etc.
Noun
picture (plural pictures)
- A representation of anything (as a person, a landscape, a building) upon canvas, paper, or other surface, by drawing, painting, printing, photography, etc.
- 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...2012 March, Brian Hayes, “Pixels or Perish”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 106
- An image; a representation as in the imagination.
- 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
- Synonyms:
- image
- A painting.
- There was a picture hanging above the fireplace.
- Here the stripped panelling was warmly gold and the pictures, mostly of the English school, were mellow and gentle in the afternoon light.1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 3, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC
- A photograph.
- I took a picture of the church.
- It has not been used for many years, and although it was impracticable to photograph the engine in the small confines of the shed it was possible to obtain a picture of the plate which it still carries showing the former ownership.1952 February, H. C. Casserley, “Permanent Wayfarings”, in Railway Magazine, page 77
- A motion picture.
- Casablanca is my all-time favorite picture.
- "You make moving pictures. In jungles and places." "That's me. And I've picked you for the lead in my next picture."1932, Delos W. Lovelace, King Kong, published 1965, page 13
- ("the pictures") Cinema (as a form of entertainment).
- Let's go to the pictures.
- A paragon, a perfect example or specimen (of a category).
- She's the very picture of health.
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in poor health for much of his presidency, even though his doctors, his family, and even journalists colluded to portray him as the picture of health.2018, Sandeep Jauhar, Heart: a History, →ISBN, page 114
- An attractive sight.
- The garden is a real picture at this time of year.
- it was heartening to see a young Indian football team Mata had invited to Manchester. His face was a picture when he listened to the little footballers sing a team song for him.2018 January 1, Donald McRae, “The Guardian footballer of the year 2017: Juan Mata”, in the Guardian
- The art of painting; representation by painting.
- any well-expressed image[…]either in picture or sculpture1862, Henry Barnard, “Sir Henry Wotton”, in American Journal of Education
- A figure; a model.
- the young king's picture[…]in virgin wax1655, James Howell, “To my Brother Dr. Howell”, in Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ. Familiar Letters Domestic and Forren. […], 3rd edition, volume (please specify the page), London: […] Humphrey Mos[e]ley, […]...
- Situation.
- The employment picture for the older middle class is not so good.
- You can't just look at the election, you've got to look at the big picture.
- A sample of an illegal drug.
- If you want me to buy your weed I’ll need a picture.
- A format string in the COBOL programming language.
- The COBOL restriction for the currency symbol in a picture string to be replaced by a single character currency symbol is a compromise solution.1997, John Barnes, Ada 95 Rationale: The Language - The Standard Libraries, page 390
- To recapitulate, the pictures we have considered so far are: X – any character A — alphabetic characters and the space character […]1997, Roger Hutty, Mary Spence, Mastering COBOL Programming, page 20
Verb
picture (third-person singular simple present pictures, present participle picturing, simple past and past participle pictured)
- To represent in or with a picture.
- while upon the shaded top of the box, drawn in perspective, the artist had pictured a plate with the beautifully executed, twin-lobed, brainlike, halved kernel of a walnut.1962, Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire, page 130
- What is striking about the self portrait is that the patient had pictured herself as a much younger woman1966, Margaret Naumburg, Dynamically oriented art therapy, page 154
- To imagine or envision.
- Now that he had seen him once, he could picture the fish swimming in the water with his purple pectoral fins set wide as wings and the great erect tail slicing through the dark.1952 September 1, Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, page 67
- Picture yourself on a boat on a river / With tangerine trees and marmalade skies1967, Lennon–McCartney, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”, in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
- To depict or describe vividly.
- I had never found him so impossible to soften or to move. I tried this way and I tried that; I pictured his future in an English gaol; I described the sorrow of his mother when I came back with the news; I said everything to touch his heart, but all to no purpose.1898, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Man with the Watches
- Drawing is picturing people, places, and things with line.1985, Edmund Burke Feldman, Thinking about art, page 252
picture meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
picture in Hindi
- representation of visible reality produced by drawing, etc
- चित्र citra, छबि chabi, छवि chavi, तस्वीर tasvīr
- photograph
- चित्र citra
- cinema
- चलचित्र calcitra
picture in Tamil
- representation of visible reality produced by drawing, etc
- படம் paṭam
- photograph
- புகைப்படம் pukaippaṭam
- cinema
- திரைப்படம் tiraippaṭam, படம் paṭam
- to take a picture of
- படம்பிடி paṭampiṭi, படமெடு paṭameṭu
picture in Marathi
- representation of visible reality produced by drawing, etc
- चित्र citra
- photograph
- फोटो phoṭo, प्रकाशचित्र prakāścitra, छायाचित्र chāyācitra
- cinema
- पिक्चर pikcar, चित्रपट citrapaṭ
picture in Urdu
- representation of visible reality produced by drawing, etc
- تَصْوِیر tasvīr
More languagesFewer languages
- picture in Bengali
- ছবি chobi
- picture in Telugu
- బొమ్మ bomma, చిత్రం citraṁ, ఫోటో phōṭō
- picture in Malayalam
- ചിത്രം citraṁ, പടം paṭaṁ, ചിത്രമെടുക്കുക citrameṭukkuka, പടമെടുക്കുക paṭameṭukkuka
- picture in Kannada
- ಚಿತ್ರ citra
- picture in Punjabi
- ਤਸਵੀਰ tasvīr
- picture in Gujarati
- ચિત્ર citra
- picture in Odia
- ଛବି chabi
- picture in Sanskrit
- चित्र citra
- picture in Sinhala
- පින්තූරය pintūraya
- picture in Assamese
- ছবি sobi
- picture in Nepali
- चित्र citra, तस्बिर tasbira, नक्सा naksā
- picture in Pashto
- انځور anźor, تصوير taswir
- picture in Tagalog
- larawan
- picture in Arabic
- صُورَة ṣūra, تَصْوِير taṣwīr, تَصْوِيرَة taṣwīra, رَسْم rasm
- picture in Malay
- gambar
- picture in Indonesian
- gambar
- picture in Thai
- ภาพ pâap, รูปภาพ rûup-pâap, รูป rûup, ภาพถ่าย pâap-pá-tàai
- picture in Vietnamese
- hình ảnh, hình, tấm hình
- picture in Myanmar
- ကား ka:, ပုံ pum, ကားရုပ် ka:rup, ရုပ်ပုံ ruppum
Examples of picture in a sentence
- Drawings and pictures are more than mere ornaments in scientific discourse.2012 March, Brian Hayes, “Pixels or Perish”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 106:
- 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.2007, The Workers' Republic:
- Pictures of Lily made my life so wonderful / Pictures of Lily helped me sleep at night1967, “Pictures of Lily”, performed by The Who:
- I've been looking so long at these pictures of you / That I almost believe that they're real1989, “Pictures of You”, in Disintegration, performed by The Cure:
Synonyms of picture
Forms of picture
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | pictures |
| alternative pronunciation-spelling | pickchah |
| alternative pronunciation-spelling | pickchuh |
| alternative pronunciation-spelling | pitcha |
| alternative pronunciation-spelling | pitchah |
| alternative pronunciation-spelling | pitcher |
| alternative pronunciation-spelling | pitchuh |
| alternative pronunciation-spelling | pitchur |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | pictures |
| present participle | picturing |
| past participle | pictured |
| past | pictured |
Origin of picture
Inherited from Middle English picture, from Latin pictūra (“the art of painting, a painting”), from pingō (“to paint”). Doublet of pictura.
Words formed from picture
- a picture is worth a thousand words
- a picture paints a thousand words
- bigger picture
- big-picture
- B-picture
- closet-picture
- counterpicture
- depicture
- desktop picture
- devil's picture books
- dickture
- Dirac picture
- eigenpicture
- enter the picture
- get the picture
- Heisenberg picture
- interaction picture
- in the picture
- living picture
- micropicture
- mixed picture
- moving picture
- moving-picture theater
- multipicture
- out of the picture
- overpicture
- paint a rosy picture
- pen-picture
- pen picture
- Pictionary
- pictology
- picturable
- pictural
- picture black
- picture book
- picture box
- picture bride
- picture card
- picturecraft
- picture day
- picture desk
- picture dictionary
- picture disc
- picturedom
- picturedrome
- picture editor
- picture frame
- picture framing
- pictureful
- picturegoer
- picturegraph
- picture hat
- picture house
- picture-in-picture
- pictureless
- picturelike
- picture lock
- picturemaker
- picturemaking
- picture message
Phrases with picture
- big picture
- picture rod
- sun picture
- picture days
- picture hats
- picture rail
- picture rods
- picture show
- picture sort
- picture tube
- road picture
- picture books
56 more phrasesFewer phrases
- picture boxes
- picture cards
- picture desks
- picture discs
- picture paper
- picture plane
- picture rails
- picture shows
- picture sorts
- picture tubes
- picture white
- still picture
- world picture
- motion picture
- picture blacks
- picture brides
- picture frames
- picture houses
- picture palace
- picture papers
- picture planes
- picture whites
- picture window
- silent picture
- take a picture
- took a picture
- got the picture
- picture editors
- picture molding
- picture palaces
- picture perfect
- picture windows
- profile picture
- taken a picture
- takes a picture
- talking picture
- gets the picture
- picture framings
- picture messages
- picture moldings
- picture postcard
- taking a picture
- picture messaging
- picture postcards
- enters the picture
- gotten the picture
- entered the picture
- getting the picture
- pretty as a picture
- entering the picture
- picture dictionaries
- digital picture frame
- paints a rosy picture
- digital picture frames
- painted a rosy picture
- painting a rosy picture
Words that rhyme with picture
Questions about picture
- What does picture mean?
- Picture means a representation of anything (as a person, a landscape, a building) upon canvas, paper, or other surface, by drawing, painting, printing, photography, etc.
- What is picture in Hindi?
- Picture in Hindi is चित्र (citra), छबि (chabi), छवि (chavi). See Picture meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use picture in a sentence?
- Drawings and pictures are more than mere ornaments in scientific discourse.
- What part of speech is picture?
- Picture can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce picture?
- Picture is pronounced /ˈpɪk.t͡ʃə/ (UK).
- What is the plural of picture?
- The plural of picture is pictures.
Words near picture in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: picture (page history and authors); चित्र (Nepali) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-picture.ogg.
Cite this entry: “picture.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/picture. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.