draw
Pronunciation
  • (British) IPA: /dɹɔː/
  • (America) IPA: /dɹɔ/
  • (cot-caught) IPA: /dɹɑ/
Verb

draw (draws, present participle drawing; past drew, past participle drawn)

  1. To move or develop something.
    1. To sketch; depict with lines; to produce a picture with pencil, crayon, chalk, etc. on paper, cardboard, etc.
      • A flattering painter who made it his care / To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are.
      • Can I, untouched, the fair one's passions move, / Or thou draw beauty and not feel its power?
    2. To deduce or infer.
      He tried to draw a conclusion from the facts.
    3. (intransitive, transitive, of drinks, especially tea) To steep, leave temporarily so as to allow the flavour to increase.
      Tea is much nicer if you let it draw for more than two minutes before pouring.
    4. (transitive) To take or procure from a place of deposit; to call for and receive from a fund, etc.
      to draw money from a bank
    5. To take into the lungs; to inhale.
      • 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, OCLC 639762314 ↗, page 0045 ↗:
        Serene, smiling, enigmatic, she faced him with no fear whatever showing in her dark eyes. […] She put back a truant curl from her forehead where it had sought egress to the world, and looked him full in the face now, drawing a deep breath which caused the round of her bosom to lift the lace at her throat.
      • 1979, Monty Python, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life
        So always look on the bright side of death / Just before you draw your terminal breath
    6. (used with prepositions and adverbs) To move; to come or go.
      We drew back from the cliff edge.
      The runners drew level with each other as they approached the finish line.
      Draw near to the fire and I will tell you a tale.
    7. (transitive) To obtain from some cause or origin; to infer from evidence or reasons; to deduce from premises; to derive.
      • We do not draw the moral lessons we might from history.
    8. (transitive, obsolete) To withdraw.
      • 1591, William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act II, scene i]:
        Go, wash thy face, and draw thy action.
    9. (archaic) To draw up (a document).
      to draw a memorial, a deed, or bill of exchange
      • c. 1596–1598, William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act IV, scene i]:
        Clerk, draw a deed of gift.
  2. To exert or experience force.
    1. (transitive) To drag, pull.
      • 1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Land That Time Forgot, Chapter VIII
        Lys shuddered, and I put my arm around her and drew her to me; and thus we sat throughout the hot night. She told me of her abduction and of the fright she had undergone, and together we thanked God that she had come through unharmed, because the great brute had dared not pause along the danger-infested way.
      • 1945 August 17, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter 1, in Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, London: Secker & Warburg, OCLC 3655473 ↗:
        At the last moment Mollie, the foolish, pretty white mare who drew Mr. Jones's trap, came mincing daintily in, chewing at a lump of sugar.
    2. (intransitive) To pull; to exert strength in drawing anything; to have force to move anything by pulling.
      This horse draws well.
      A ship's sail is said to draw when it is filled with wind.
    3. To pull out (as a gun from a holster, or a tooth).
      They drew their swords and fought each other.
    4. To undergo the action of pulling or dragging.
      The carriage draws easily.
    5. (archery) To pull back the bowstring and its arrow in preparation for shooting.
    6. (of curtains, etc.) To close.
      You should draw the curtains at night.
    7. (of curtains, etc.) To open.
      She drew the curtains to let in the sunlight.
    8. (cards) To take the top card of a deck into hand.
      At the start of their turn, each player must draw a card.
  3. (fluidic) To remove or separate or displace.
    1. To extract a liquid, or cause a liquid to come out, primarily water or blood.
      draw water from a well;  draw water for a bath;  the wound drew blood
      • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), imprinted at London: By Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981 ↗, John 4:11 ↗:
        The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.
      • Spirits, by distillations, may be drawn out of vegetable juices, which shall flame and fume of themselves.
    2. To drain by emptying; to suck dry.
    3. (figurative) To extract; to force out; to elicit; to derive.
      • c. 1610–1611, William Shakespeare, “The VVinters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act I, scene ii]:
        I had thought, sir, to have held my peace until
        You have drawn oaths from him not to stay.
    4. To sink in water; to require a depth for floating.
      A ship draws ten feet of water.
      • c. 1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act II, scene iii]:
        Greater hulks draw deep.
    5. (intransitive, medicine, dated) To work as an epispastic; said of a blister, poultice, etc.
    6. (intransitive) To have a draught; to transmit smoke, gases, etc.
      The chimney won't draw properly if it's clogged up with soot.
    7. (analogous) To consume, for example, power.
      The circuit draws three hundred watts.
  4. To change in size or shape.
    1. To extend in length; to lengthen; to protract; to stretch.
      to draw a mass of metal into wire
      • 1613, William Shakespeare; [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act IV, scene ii]:
        How long her face is drawn!
      • the huge Offa's dike which he drew from the mouth of Wye to that of Dee
    2. (intransitive) To become contracted; to shrink.
      • 1626, Francis Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum, Or, A Naturall Historie: In Ten Centuries
        water […] will shrink or draw into less room
  5. To attract or be attracted.
    1. To attract.
      The citizens were afraid the casino would draw an undesirable element to their town.  I was drawn to her.
    2. To induce (a reticent person) to speak.
      He refused to be drawn on the subject
    3. (hunting) To search for game.
      • 1928, Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, Penguin 2013, p.87:
        On one of my expeditions, after a stormy night, at the end of March, the hounds drew all day without finding a fox.
    4. To cause.
    5. (intransitive) To exert an attractive force; (figurative) to act as an inducement or enticement.
      • 1626, Francis Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum, Or, A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries
        These following bodies do not draw: smaragd, achates, corneolus, pearl, jaspis, chalcedonius, alabaster, porphyry, coral, marble, touchstone, haematites, or bloodstone […]
      • Keep a watch upon the particular bias which nature has fixed in their minds, that it may not draw too much.
  6. (usually as draw on or draw upon) To rely on; utilize as a source.
    She had to draw upon her experience to solve the problem.
    • You may draw on me for the expenses of your journey.
  7. To disembowel.
    He will be hanged, drawn and quartered.
    • In private draw your poultry, clean your tripe.
  8. (transitive or intransitive) To end a game in a draw (with neither side winning).
    We drew last time we played.  I drew him last time I played him.  I drew my last game against him.
  9. To choose by means of a random selection process.
    1. To select by the drawing of lots.
      The winning lottery numbers were drawn every Tuesday.
    2. (transitive) To win in a lottery or similar game of chance.
      He drew a prize.
    3. (poker) To trade in cards for replacements in draw poker games; to attempt to improve one's hand with future cards. See also draw out.
      Jill has four diamonds; she'll try to draw for a flush.
  10. (curling) To make a shot that lands gently in the house (the circular target) without knocking out other stones.
  11. (cricket) To play (a short-length ball directed at the leg stump) with an inclined bat so as to deflect the ball between the legs and the wicket.
  12. (golf) To hit (the ball) with the toe of the club so that it is deflected toward the left.
  13. (billiards) To strike (the cue ball) below the center so as to give it a backward rotation which causes it to take a backward direction on striking another ball.
Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Noun

draw

  1. The result of a contest that neither side has won; a tie.
    The game ended in a draw.
  2. The procedure by which the result of a lottery is determined.
    The draw is on Saturday.
  3. Something that attracts e.g. a crowd.
    • 2012, Christoper Zara, Tortured Artists: From Picasso and Monroe to Warhol and Winehouse, the Twisted Secrets of the World's Most Creative Minds, part 1, chapter 1, gbooks :
      After It, Clara became one of the top box-office draws in Hollywood, but her popularity was short lived.
  4. (cricket) The result of a two-innings match in which at least one side did not complete all their innings before time ran out (as distinguished from a tie).
  5. (golf) A golf shot that (for the right-handed player) curves intentionally to the left. See hook, slice, fade.
  6. (curling) A shot that is intended to land gently in the house (the circular target) without knocking out other stones; cf. takeout.
  7. (geography) A dry stream bed that drains surface water only during periods of heavy rain or flooding.
    • 1918, Willa Cather, My Ántonia, Mirado Modern Classics, paperback edition, page 15
      The garden, curiously enough, was a quarter of a mile from the house, and the way to it led up a shallow draw past the cattle corral.
  8. (slang, countable) A bag of cannabis.
    • 2011, Yvonne Ellis, Daughter, Arise: A Journey from Devastation to Restoration (page 54)
      So my friends and I would all chip in money to get a bag of weed or a draw.
  9. (slang, uncountable) Cannabis.
    • 2017, Michael Coleman, Old Skool Rave (page 139)
      Mick spoke to Simon, who was more of a drinker. He said that people who smoked draw were boring.
  10. In a commission-based job, an advance on future (potential) commissions given to an employee by the employer.
  11. (poker) A situation in which one or more players has four cards of the same suit or four out of five necessary cards for a straight and requires a further card to make their flush or straight.
  12. (archery) The act of pulling back the strings in preparation of firing.
  13. (sports) The spin or twist imparted to a ball etc. by a drawing stroke.
Synonyms
  • (The result of a contest in which neither side has won) stalemate
  • (dry stream bed that drains water during periods of heavy precipitation) dry creek
Translations Translations Translations Translations


This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.004
Offline English dictionary