picturenoun/ˈpɪk.t͡ʃə/

• 1

  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.
  • 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 presenting evidence, for explaining a theory, for telling a story.
• 2

  An image; a representation as in the imagination.

  • My eyes make pictures when they are shut.
  • 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.
• 3

  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.
• 4

  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.
• 5

  datedA 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."
• 6

  informal("the pictures") Cinema (as a form of entertainment).

  • Let's go to the pictures.
• 7

  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.
• 8

  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.

pictureverb/ˈpɪk.t͡ʃə/

• 1

  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.
  • What is striking about the self portrait is that the patient had pictured herself as a much younger woman
• 2

  To imagine or envision.

  • Picture yourself on a boat on a river / With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
  • If you can picture this—a day in December / Picture this—freezing cold weather / You got clouds on your lids and you'd be on the skids
• 3

  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.
  • Drawing is picturing people, places, and things with line.