portrait · adj — representing the actual features of an individual; not ideal. It carries an Arena rating of 1669, earned across 5 head-to-head judged battles.
Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, portrait ranks #847 of 17,187 for Most Malleable Words, #2,101 of 17,162 for Most Elegant Words, #4,041 of 17,180 for Most Ingenious Words, #4,289 of 17,166 for Most Vivid Words.
portrait is pronounced /ˈpɔːtɹeɪt/.
Why “portrait” is a great word
A painting, photograph, or other artistic representation of a person, especially one depicting the face. From Middle French *portraict*, *pourtraict*, nominal use of the past participle of *portraire* ("to portray"), from Latin *prōtrahō* ("to drag forth, draw out"), from *prō-" ("forth") + *trahō* ("to pull, draw"), first attested in English in the 1560s. Unlike "landscape," which surrenders the eye to distance, or "profile," which offers only a silhouette, a portrait is an act of extraction. It is the drag of a sitter into the room of the viewer: the particular oil sheen on a Dutch merchant's collar, the arrested breath in a sepia daguerreotype, the unblinking fluorescence of a passport photograph. It is the evidence of a specific consciousness, pulled forth and fixed, before both it and the world that witnessed it are drawn into the past.
❧ Essay by Lexicurio’s AI · definition, etymology & citations from published sources
Etymology
From Middle French portraict, pourtraict, nominal use of the past participle of portraire (“portray”), from Latin prōtrahō (< prō- + trahō). Compare typologically English drawing.
adj
- Representing the actual features of an individual; not ideal.e.g.“a portrait bust; a portrait statue”
noun
- A painting or other picture of a person, especially the head and shoulders.e.g.“In portraits, the grace, and, we may add, the likeness, consists more in the general air than in the exact similitude of every feature.” — a. 1792, Joshua Reynolds, Discourses on Painting and the Fine Arts:
- An accurate depiction of a person, a mood, etc.e.g.“The author painted a good portrait of urban life in New York in his latest book.”
- A print orientation where the vertical sides are longer than the horizontal sides.
verb
- To portray; to draw.e.g.“But all as in most exquisite pictures, they vse to blaze and portrait, not only the daintie lineaments or beautie, but also round about it to shadowe the rude thickets and craggy clifts” — 1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], The Shepheardes Calender: […], London: […] Hugh Singleton, […], →OCLC:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).