depict

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Pronunciation

• IPA: /dɪˈpɪkt/

Verb

depict (depicts, present participle depicting; past and past participle depicted)

1. To render a representation of something, using words, sounds, images, or other means. [from early 15th c.]

   Synonyms: portray, express, exhibit, register, show, describe, visualise, draw, render, depicture

   • 1639, Thomas Fuller, The Historie of the Holy Warre, Cambridge, Book 4, Chapter 12, p. 189,

     And by [these Embassadours] he sent to their master a Tent, wherein the history of the Bible was as richly as curiously depicted in needle-work;

   • 1770, Thomas Chatterton, The Auction, a Poem: A Familiar Epistle to a Friend, London: George Kearsly, p. ,

     The Spring, when all its beauties rise,

     I see depicted in your eyes

   • 1851, George Borrow, Lavengro, Chapter 52,

     […] I observed alarm beginning to depict itself upon her countenance.

   • 1984, Lawrence Starr, "Toward a Reevaluation of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess," American Music, vol. 2, no. 2, p. 27,

     The well-known words depict a woman seeking sanctuary in a love relationship form a brutal, rapacious man.

   • 1987, Niall O'Loughlin, "Music Reviews: 20th-century guitar," The Musical Times, vol. 128, no. 1734, p. 443,

     Here the music depicts the delicate pattern of ice on windows.

   • 1994, E. Pennisi, "Breathe (xenon) deeply to see lungs clearly," Science News, vol. 146, no. 5, p. 70 (caption),

     False-color computer images depict lungs removed from a mouse.

Related terms

• depiction
• depictive

Translations

• French: représenter, décrire
• German: darstellen, beschreiben, abbilden
• Italian: rappresenta, raffigura
• Portuguese: representar, retratar, descrever
• Russian: изобража́ть
• Spanish: representar

Adjective

depict (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) Depicted.
   • Early 1400s, John Lydgate, “The Concords of Company” in James Halliwell-Phillipps (ed.), A Selection from the Minor Poems of Dan John Lydgate, London: The Percy Society, 1840, p. 177,

     I fond a lyknesse depict upon a wal,

     Armed in vertues, as I walk up and doun,

     The hed of thre ful solempne and roial,

     Intellectus, memorye, and resoun;

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