OUTLINE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Outline

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/ˈaʊtlˌaɪn/ Listen

noun

Outline n.

(a)

The line which marks the outer limits of an object or figure; the exterior line or edge; contour.

(b)

In art: A line drawn by pencil, pen, graver, or the like, by which the boundary of a figure is indicated.

(c)

A sketch composed of such lines; the delineation of a figure without shading. "Painters, by their outlines, colors, lights, and shadows, represent the same in their pictures."

Fig.: A sketch of any scheme; a preliminary or general indication of a plan, system, discourse, course of thought, etc.; as, the outline of a speech. "But that larger grief... Is given in outline and no more."

Synonyms: Sketch; draught; delineation. See Sketch.

verb

Outline v. t. (past & past part. outlined; pres. part. outlining)

To draw the outline of.

Fig.: To sketch out or indicate as by an outline; to create a general framework of (a plan, system, discourse, course of thought), for which the details need to be added; as, to outline an argument or a campaign.

See images of 'Outline'

Etymology of 'Outline'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Outline" Quotes from Famous Books

... traced this outline relative to the services and excesses of Lord Cochrane, the Commission now ...

— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... helpless in its blood; it showed myself, as a girl of eighteen, standing awestruck, gazing on in blank horror at the sight; and in the background, half blurred by the summer evening light, it showed the vague outline of a man's back, getting out of the window. On one side was the door: that formed no part of my mental picture, because it was at my back; but in the photograph it too was indistinct, as if in the very act ...

— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen

... an outline map of the lands around the Mediterranean mark on each land, Spain, Greece, northern Africa, Asia Minor, and Egypt, the dates at which the Romans conquered each, finding these dates in any brief Roman or Ancient History—Botsford, ...

— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton

... too highly finished; nothing of the pittore improvisatore. A party of this kind should be more sketchy in its style; the outline ...

— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... fluffy hairs on my legs (which give them the outline of a Zouave's) had somehow gotten dirty. She insisted upon washing me. I persuaded her that I suffered atrociously ...

— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette

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