picture

pic|ture1 [ `pıktʃər ] noun ***

1. ) count a drawing, painting, or photograph:

I noticed a picture on the dining room wall.

a children's book with bright colorful pictures

picture of: She showed me a picture of the house where she was born.

a picture of a peaceful country scene

draw/paint a picture: She asked children to draw pictures of their family.

take a picture (=to produce a photograph using a camera): I'll stand over here, and you can take the picture.

a ) an image on a television, video, or computer screen:

Some viewers are suffering from poor picture quality on all channels.

b ) an image in your mind:

I have such happy pictures in my mind of those times.

a mental picture: She had a mental picture of Samuel's face.

2. ) singular a situation:

The economic picture has changed a lot in the last couple of weeks.

The general picture was one of neglect and decline.

3. ) count usually singular a description or idea of what someone or something is like:

paint a picture (of something) (=give a description of something): The report paints a rather gloomy picture of life in the inner cities.

picture of: My friends had a very distorted picture of my life.

4. ) count a movie:

It won the award for Best Picture.

a ) the pictures plural OLD-FASHIONED the movies

be/look a picture INFORMAL

to look beautiful, interesting, or funny:

You should have seen her face when she told him: it was an absolute picture!

the big/wider picture

a whole or complete situation, including all the things it affects, not just one part of it

get the picture INFORMAL

to understand something, especially something that someone tells you indirectly

out of the picture INFORMAL

no longer involved in something:

I could have asked Shane to help, but he was out of the picture by then.

put someone in the picture INFORMAL

to give someone the information they need to understand:

Mike here can put you in the picture about how we run the office.

a/the picture of something

used for emphasizing a particular quality in someone's appearance:

He was a picture of wide-eyed innocence.

picture

pic|ture 2 [ `pıktʃər ] verb transitive **

1. ) to imagine something:

She smiled involuntarily as she pictured the scene.

Try to picture what life was like back in those days.

picture someone/yourself doing something: I pictured myself lying in the sun, a cool drink in my hand.

picture someone/something as something: It was hard to picture him as a responsible husband and father.

2. ) to show someone in a photograph, painting, etc.:

She is pictured on the magazine's front cover.

Pictured above are a selection of clothes from the new collection.