depicture

English

Etymology

From de- +‎ picture; formed under the influence of depict.

Verb

1. (transitive, archaic) To make a picture or representation of.

   Synonyms: depict, portray, render

   • 1596, Thomas Lodge, A Margarite of America, London: John Busbie,^[1]

     The bed appointed for the prince to rest himselfe, was of blacke Ebonie enchased which Rubies, Diamons and Carbun[c]ls […] on which by degrees mans state from infancie to his olde age was plainly depictured,

   • 1749 Henry Fielding, A Journey from this World to the Next, Book 1, Chapter 3, in The Works of Henry Fielding, London: J. Johnson et al., 1806, Volume 4, pp. 339-340,^[2]

     I next mounted through a large painted staircase, where several persons were depictured in caricatura;

2. (transitive, archaic) To represent in words.

   Synonyms: describe, depict, portray

   • 1825, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, London: William Pickering, 1836, “Moral and Religious Aphorisms,” p. 85,^[3]

     The modern Fiction which depictures the son of Cytherea [i.e. Eros] with a bandage round his eyes, is not without a spiritual meaning. There is a sweet and holy Blindness in Christian LOVE […]

   • 1862, Ellen Wood (as Mrs. Henry Wood), Life’s Secret, London: Charles W. Wood, 1867, Volume 2, Chapter 9, p. 192,^[4]

     You have seen some of its [the dispute’s] disastrous working upon the men: you cannot see it all, for it would take a whole volume to depicture it.

   • 1886, Richard Francis Burton (translator), Supplemental Nights to The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, London: The Burton Club, “The Tale of the Prince who fell in love with the Picture,” p. 229,^[5]

     Now as soon as the goldsmith saw her, he knew her (for that the Prince had talked with him of her and had depictured her to him) […]

3. (transitive, archaic) To give visual evidence of (referring to a person's facial expression or appearance)

   Synonyms: reflect, show, indicate, betoken

   • 1790, Ann Radcliffe, A Sicilian Romance, London: T. Hookham, Volume 2, Chapter 12, p. 115,^[6]

     […] he entered the church with a proud firm step, and with a countenance which depictured his inward triumph;

   • 1845, Thomas Cooper, “London ’Venture; or, The Old Story Over Again” in Wise Saws and Modern Instances, London: Jeremiah How, Volume 1, p. 58,^[7]

     A look, depicturing such agony as Ingram never saw before, in the face of man, accompanied this declaration on the part of his friend […]

   • 1910, anonymous, “The State of Arkansaw” in John A. Lomax, Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads, New York: Sturgis & Walton, p. 227,^[8]

     I followed my conductor into his dwelling place;

     Poverty were depictured in his melancholy face.

4. (transitive, archaic) To form a mental image of.

   Synonyms: imagine, picture

   • 1909, James Branch Cabell, The Cords of Vanity, New York: Doubleday, Page, Chapter 30, p. 326,^[9]

     […] I would depicture her, a foiled and wistful little wraith, very lonely in eternity […]

Derived terms

• depicturement

Noun

depicture (plural depictures)

1. (archaic) The act or result of depicturing something or someone.

   Synonym: depiction

   • 1876, George Parsons Lathrop, A Study of Hawthorne, Boston: James R. Osgood, Chapter 8, p. 237,^[10]

     The conception of a misdeed operating through several generations […] was a novel one at the time; this graphic depicture of the past at work upon the present has anticipated a great deal of the history and criticism of the following twenty-five years […]

   • 1914, Arnold Haultain, Of Walks and Walking Tours, London: T. Werner Laurie, Chapter 8, p. 31,^[11]

     No pen could do them justice; and, among painters, only the brush of a Corot could attempt their depicture without depriving them of their exquisite, their almost evanescent, softness.

   • 1972, Stanley Bertram Chrimes, Henry VII, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, Appendix F: “Portraiture of Henry VII and Queen Elizabeth,” p. 333,^[12]

     Three other depictures of Henry VII are known to have been made during his lifetime.