represent transitive verb [F. représenter, L. repraesentare, repraesentatum; pref. re- re- + preesentare to place before, present. See Present, transitive verb]

1. To present again or anew; to present by means of something standing in the place of; to exhibit the counterpart or image of; to typify.

Before him burn
Seven lamps, as in a zodiac representing
The heavenly fires. Milton.

2. To portray by pictoral or plastic art; to delineate; as, to represent a landscape in a picture, a horse in bronze, and the like.

3. To portray by mimicry or action of any kind; to act the part or character of; to personate; as, to represent Hamlet.

4. To stand in the place of; to supply the place, perform the duties, exercise the rights, or receive the share, of; to speak and act with authority in behalf of; to act the part of (another); as, an heir represents his ancestor; an attorney represents his client in court; a member of Congress represents his district in Congress.

5. To exhibit to another mind in language; to show; to give one’s own impressions and judgement of; to bring before the mind; to set forth; sometimes, to give an account of; to describe.

He represented Rizzio's credit with the queen to be the chief and only obstacle to his success in that demand. Robertson.

This bank is thought the greatest load on the Genoese, and the managers of it have been represented as a second kind of senate. Addison.

6. To serve as a sign or symbol of; as, mathematical symbols represent quantities or relations; words represent ideas or things.

7. To bring a sensation of into the mind or sensorium; to cause to be known, felt, or apprehended; to present.

Among these. Fancy next
Her office holds; of all external things
Which he five watchful senses represent,
She forms imaginations, aery shapes. Milton.

8. (Metaph.) To form or image again in consciousness, as an object of cognition or apprehension (something which was originally apprehended by direct presentation). See Presentative, 3.

The general capability of knowledge necessarily requires that, besides the power of evoking out of unconsciousness one portion of our retained knowledge in preference to another, we posses the faculty of representing in consciousness what is thus evoked . . . This representative Faculty is Imagination or Phantasy. Sir. W. Hamilton.

-- Webster's unabridged 1913