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Design   /dɪzˈaɪn/   Listen
noun
Design  n.  
1.
A preliminary sketch; an outline or pattern of the main features of something to be executed, as of a picture, a building, or a decoration; a delineation; a plan.
2.
A plan or scheme formed in the mind of something to be done; preliminary conception; idea intended to be expressed in a visible form or carried into action; intention; purpose; often used in a bad sense for evil intention or purpose; scheme; plot. "The leaders of that assembly who withstood the designs of a besotted woman." "A... settled design upon another man's life." "How little he could guess the secret designs of the court!"
3.
Specifically, intention or purpose as revealed or inferred from the adaptation of means to an end; as, the argument from design.
4.
The realization of an inventive or decorative plan; esp., a work of decorative art considered as a new creation; conception or plan shown in completed work; as, this carved panel is a fine design, or of a fine design.
5.
(Mus.) The invention and conduct of the subject; the disposition of every part, and the general order of the whole.
Arts of design, those into which the designing of artistic forms and figures enters as a principal part, as architecture, painting, engraving, sculpture.
School of design, one in which are taught the invention and delineation of artistic or decorative figures, patterns, and the like.
Synonyms: Intention; purpose; scheme; project; plan; idea. Design, Intention, Purpose. Design has reference to something definitely aimed at. Intention points to the feelings or desires with which a thing is sought. Purpose has reference to a settled choice or determination for its attainment. "I had no design to injure you," means it was no part of my aim or object. "I had no intention to injure you," means, I had no wish or desire of that kind. "My purpose was directly the reverse," makes the case still stronger. "Is he a prudent man... that lays designs only for a day, without any prospect to the remaining part of his life?" "I wish others the same intention, and greater successes." "It is the purpose that makes strong the vow."


verb
Design  v. t.  (past & past part. designed; pres. part. designing)  
1.
To draw preliminary outline or main features of; to sketch for a pattern or model; to delineate; to trace out; to draw.
2.
To mark out and exhibit; to designate; to indicate; to show; to point out; to appoint. "We shall see Justice design the victor's chivalry." "Meet me to-morrow where the master And this fraternity shall design."
3.
To create or produce, as a work of art; to form a plan or scheme of; to form in idea; to invent; to project; to lay out in the mind; as, a man designs an essay, a poem, a statue, or a cathedral.
4.
To intend or purpose; usually with for before the remote object, but sometimes with to. "Ask of politicians the end for which laws were originally designed." "He was designed to the study of the law."
Synonyms: To sketch; plan; purpose; intend; propose; project; mean.


Design  v. i.  To form a design or designs; to plan.
Design for, to intend to go to. (Obs.) "From this city she designed for Collin (Cologne)."





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Design" Quotes from Famous Books



... Florence an immense block of marble. One hundred years before a sculptor had tried to carve something from it, but had failed. This was now given to Michael Angelo. He was to be paid twelve dollars a month, and to be allowed two years in which to carve a statue. He made his design in wax; and then built a tower around the block, so that he might work inside without ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... Walk might be acted along the stoops. For a necessary stage property—you recall, of course, the lamplighter with his ladder in the second act!—there is a gas lamp of old design in the middle of the enclosure, up near the footlights, as it were. From the stoops the main comedy might proceed, with certain business at the upper windows—the profane Admiral with the timber leg popping his head out of one, the mysterious ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... to my mind, neutralize all other power; the porcelains of Luca della Robbia are painful examples, and in lower art, Florentine mosaic in relief; gilding is more admissible, and tells sometimes sweetly upon figures of quaint design, as on the pulpit of St^a. Maria Novella, while it spoils the classical ornaments of the mouldings. But the truest grandeur of sculpture I believe to be in the white form; something of this feeling may be owing to the ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... matchless, Makers, authors, poets, Mas,ease, discomfort, Mal engine, evil design, Mal-fortune, ill-luck, mishap, Marches, borders, Mass-penny, offering at mass for the dead, Matche old, machicolated, with holes for defence, Maugre, sb., despite, Measle, disease, Medled, mingled, Medley, melee, general encounter, ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... the desperate hopes of exiles, these men were in some fashion about to attempt to overthrow the Lacedaemonian government in Thebes, and the power of Sparta. He went quietly home, and sent one of his friends to Mellon and Pelopidas, bidding them put off their design for the present, to go back to Athens, and await a better opportunity. Chlidon was the name of the messenger, and he hurriedly went to his own house, and, leading out his horse, asked for his bridle. His wife was at her wit's end, as she had it not to give him, but she ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long


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