perspective

per|spec|tive [ pər`spektıv ] noun **

1. ) count a way of thinking about something:

You can call it brave or foolish, depending on your perspective.

perspective on: The book deals with a woman's perspective on revolutionary change.

from a historical/international/financial etc. perspective: The problem needs to be looked at from a historical perspective.

from the perspective of someone/something: From the perspective of anyone with children, it looks rather irrelevant.

2. ) uncount a sensible way of judging how good, bad, important, etc. something is in comparison with other things:

lose perspective: He has lost all perspective in the rush to get what he wants.

get/keep something in perspective: It's important to keep things in perspective and not dwell on one incident.

put something into perspective: This kind of tragedy puts a mere basketball game into perspective.

get something out of perspective: You've got the problem completely out of perspective.

a sense of perspective: Writing as a foreigner gives her a great sense of perspective.

3. ) uncount a method of showing distance in a picture by making far away objects smaller:

in/out of perspective: The figures in the foreground are badly out of perspective.

4. ) count a view of a large area:

The pictures show two perspectives of the bay.