picture noun [L. pictura, fr. pingere, pictum, to paint: cf. F. peinture. See Paint.]

1. The art of painting; representation by painting. [Obs.]

Any well-expressed image . . . either in picture or sculpture. Sir H. Wotton.

2. A representation of anything (as a person, a landscape, a building) upon canvas, paper, or other surface, produced by means of painting, drawing, engraving, photography, etc.; a representation in colors. By extension, a figure; a model.

Pictures and shapes are but secondary objects. Bacon.

The young king’s picture . . . in virgin wax. Howell.

3. An image or resemblance; a representation, either to the eye or to the mind; that which, by its likeness, brings vividly to mind some other thing; as, a child is the picture of his father; the man is the picture of grief.

My eyes make pictures when they are shut. Coleridge.

☞ Picture is often used adjectively, or in forming self-explaining compounds; as, picture book or picture-book, picture frame or picture-frame, picture seller or picture-seller, etc.

Animated picture

a moving picture.

Picture gallery

a gallery, or large apartment, devoted to the exhibition of pictures.

Picture red

a rod of metal tube fixed to the walls of a room, from which pictures are hung.

Picture writing

(a) The art of recording events, or of expressing messages, by means of pictures representing the actions or circumstances in question . Tylor.

(b) The record or message so represented; as, the picture writing of the American Indians.

Syn. – Picture, Painting. Every kind of representation by drawing or painting is a picture, whether made with oil colors, water colors, pencil, crayons, or India ink; strictly, a painting is a picture made by means of colored paints, usually applied moist with a brush.

Pic′ture transitive verb [imperfect or past participle Pictured; present participle or verbal noun Picturing.] To draw or paint a resemblance of; to delineate; to represent; to form or present an ideal likeness of; to bring before the mind.

“I . . . do picture it in my mind.” Spenser.

I have not seen him so pictured. Shak.