silhouette

See also: Silhouette and silhouetté

English

A silhouette papercutting from 1771.

Photographic silhouette, taken at sunrise.

A silhouette of a skate.

Etymology

Borrowed from French silhouette, from the name of Étienne de Silhouette (1709-1767), a French politician. His surname, in turn, is (gallicized) (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Basque, from Ziloeta or Zilhoeta, from zulo (“hole, cave”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌsɪ.lʊˈwɛt/, /ˌsɪ.ləˈwɛt/, /ˌsɪ.luːˈwɛt/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛt

Noun

silhouette (plural silhouettes)

1. An illustrated outline filled in with a solid color(s), usually only black, and intended to represent the shape of an object without revealing any other visual details; a similar appearance produced when the object being viewed is situated in relative darkness with brighter lighting behind it; a profile portrait in black, such as a shadow appears to be. [mid 19th c.]

   I could see a silhouette of a figure looking out from the window, but I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman.

Translations

representation of the outlines of an object filled in with a black color

• Afrikaans: silhoeët
• Albanian: siluetë (sq)
• Armenian: ուրվագիծ (hy) (urvagic)
• Basque: silueta
• Belarusian: сілуэт m (siluet)
• Bulgarian: силует (bg) m (siluet)
• Catalan: silueta f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 剪影 (zh) (jiǎnyǐng)

• Czech: silueta (cs) f
• Danish: silhuet c
• Dutch: silhouet (nl) n
• Esperanto: silueto
• Estonian: siluett
• Finnish: siluetti (fi), varjokuva
• French: silhouette (fr) f
• Galician: silueta f
• Georgian: სილუეტი (silueṭi)
• German: Silhouette (de) f, Schattenriss (de) m
• Greek: σιλουέτα (el) f (silouéta)
• Hebrew: צלולית f (tslulít)
• Hungarian: sziluett (hu)
• Icelandic: skuggamynd (is) f
• Ido: silueto (io)
• Indonesian: siluet (id)
• Interlingue:
• Irish: scáthchruth m
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Italian: silhouette (it) f, controluce (it), sagoma (it)
• Japanese: シルエット (ja) (shiruetto)
• Korean: 실루엣 (silluet)
• Latin: adumbrātiō f
• Latvian: siluets m
• Lithuanian: siluetas m
• Macedonian: силуета f (silueta)
• Malay: siluet
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: silhuett (no) m

  Nynorsk: silhuett m

• Polish: zarys (pl), kontur (pl), sylwetka (pl) f
• Portuguese: silhueta (pt) f
• Romanian: siluetă (ro) f
• Russian: силуэ́т (ru) m (siluét)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: силуета f

  Roman: silueta (sh) f

• Slovak: silueta f
• Slovene: silhueta f
• Spanish: silueta (es) f
• Swedish: silhuett (sv) c, siluett (sv) c
• Turkish: silüet (tr)
• Ukrainian: силует (uk) m (syluet)
• Vietnamese: hình bóng, bóng (vi)
• Welsh: amlinell f, silwét m, cysgodlun m
• Yoruba: biribiri, ojiji biribiri

Verb

1. To represent by a silhouette; to project upon a background, so as to be like a silhouette. [late 19th c.]

External links

• silhouette on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Étienne de Silhouette on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

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French

Etymology

From Silhouette, after Étienne de Silhouette, a French politician, from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Basque.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /si.lwɛt/

• Audio (silhouette):

  (file)

Noun

silhouette f (plural silhouettes)

1. silhouette

Verb

silhouette

1. first-person singular present indicative of silhouetter
2. third-person singular present indicative of silhouetter
3. first-person singular present subjunctive of silhouetter
4. third-person singular present subjunctive of silhouetter
5. second-person singular imperative of silhouetter

External links

• “silhouette”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.