Word.ws English Dictionary

portrayed

portrayed is the simple past and past participle of portray.

Meaning of portray

Verb

portray (third-person singular simple present portrays, present participle portraying, simple past and past participle portrayed)

  1. To paint or draw the likeness of.
    • I will portray a king on horseback.
  2. (figuratively) To represent by an image or look.
    • Upon his browes was pourtraid vgly death,
      And in his eies the furies of his heart,
      That ſhine as Comets, menacing reueng,
      And caſts a pale complexion on his cheeks.c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC...
  3. (figuratively) To describe in words; to convey.
  4. To play a role; to depict a character, person, situation, or event.
    • For my next movie, I will be portraying Shakespeare.
  5. (obsolete) To adorn.

Forms of portrayed

alternative formpurtraid
alternative formpurtrayd

Questions about portrayed

What is portrayed the simple past and past participle of?
Portrayed is the simple past and past participle of portray.

Words near portrayed in the dictionary

  1. portray
  2. portrayability
  3. portrayable
  4. portrayal
  5. portrayals
  6. portrayed
  7. portrayee
  8. portrayees
  9. portrayer
  10. portrayers
  11. portrayeth

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: portrayed (page history and authors); portray (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: “portrayed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/portrayed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.