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[pik-cher] /ˈpɪk tʃər/

noun
1.
a visual representation of a person, object, or scene, as a painting, drawing, photograph, etc.:
I carry a picture of my grandchild in my wallet.
2.
any visible image, however produced:
pictures reflected in a pool of water.
3.
a mental image:
a clear picture of how he had looked that day.
4.
a particular image or reality as portrayed in an account or description; depiction; version.
5.
a tableau, as in theatrical representation.
6.
.
7.
pictures, Informal: Older Use. .
8.
a person, thing, group, or scene regarded as resembling a work of pictorial art in beauty, fineness of appearance, etc.:
She was a picture in her new blue dress.
9.
the image or perfect likeness of someone else:
He is the picture of his father.
10.
a visible or concrete embodiment of some quality or condition:
the picture of health.
11.
a situation or set of circumstances:
the economic picture.
12.
the image on a computer monitor, the viewing screen of a television set, or a motion-picture screen.
verb (used with object), pictured, picturing.
13.
to represent in a picture or pictorially, as by painting or drawing.
14.
to form a mental picture of; imagine:
He couldn’t picture himself doing such a thing.
15.
to in words; describe graphically:
He pictured Rome so vividly that you half-believed you were there.
16.
to present or create as a setting; portray:
His book pictured the world of the future.
/ˈpɪktʃə/
noun
1.

2.
a mental image or impression: a clear picture of events
3.
a verbal description, esp one that is vivid
4.
a situation considered as an observable scene: the political picture
5.
a person or thing that bears a close resemblance to another: he was the picture of his father
6.
a person, scene, etc, considered as typifying a particular state or quality: the picture of despair
7.
a beautiful person or scene: you’ll look a picture
8.
a complete image on a television screen, comprising two interlaced fields
9.

10.
(mainly Brit & Austral) the pictures, a cinema or film show
11.
another name for tableau vivant
12.
(informal) get the picture, to understand a situation
13.
in the picture, informed about a given situation
verb (transitive)
14.
to visualize or imagine
15.
to describe or depict, esp vividly
16.
(often passive) to put in a picture or make a picture of: they were pictured sitting on the rocks
n.

“movies,” 1912, short for moving pictures.
n.

early 15c., “drawing, painting,” from Latin pictura “painting,” from pictus, past participle of pingere “to make pictures, to paint, to embroider,” (see paint (v.)). Picture window is from 1938. Picture post-card first recorded 1899. Phrase every picture tells a story first attested 1900, in advertisements for an illustrated life of Christ. To be in (or out of) the picture in the figurative sense dates to 1900.

Expression a picture is worth a thousand words, attested from 1918, probably was from the publication trade (the notion that a picture was worth 1,000 words is in printers’ publications by 1911). The phrase also was in use in the form worth a million words, the form used by American newspaper editor Arthur Brisbane (1864-1936) in an editorial much-read c.1916 titled “What is a Good Newspaper” in the “New York Evening Journal.” In part it read, “After news and humor come good pictures. In this day of hurry we learn through the eye, and one picture may be worth a million words.” It seems to have emerged into general use via the medium of advertising (which scaled down the number and also gave the expression its spurious origin story as “a Japanese proverb” or some such thing, by 1919). Earlier various acts or deeds (and in one case “the arrow”) were said to be worth a thousand words.
v.

late 15c. in the literal sense; 1738 in the mental sense, from picture (n.). Related: Pictured; picturing.

Related Terms

in pictures

Related Terms

draw a picture
In addition to the idiom beginning with
picture