PORTRAIT • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Portrait

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/pˈɔrtrət/ Listen

noun

Portrait n.

The likeness of a person, painted, drawn, or engraved; commonly, a representation of the human face painted from real life. "In portraits, the grace, and, we may add, the likeness, consists more in the general air than in the exact similitude of every feature." Note: The meaning of the word is sometimes extended so as to include a photographic likeness.

Hence, any graphic or vivid delineation or description of a person; as, a portrait in words.

Portrait bust, or Portrait statue, a bust or statue representing the actual features or person of an individual; in distinction from an ideal bust or statue.

verb

Portrait v. t. To portray; to draw. (Obs.)

See images of 'Portrait'

Etymology of 'Portrait'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Portrait" Quotes from Famous Books

... depreciating eye towards the portrait, but, after a glance at it, suddenly regained his ...

— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)

... that the power to do imaginative work in a literary medium is as much a special gift as the power to interpret human life on canvas. It was exactly the same thing as if you or I, who have not the remotest notion how to draw a man on horseback correctly, were to try to paint a Velasquez portrait. It did not seem to enter the poor fellow's head that the novelist, in no matter how humble a way, no matter how infinitesimal the invisible grain of muse may be, must have the especial, incommunicable gift, the queer twist of brain, if you like, ...

— Jaffery • William J. Locke

... heart, and not less distinguished for her sound sense and good manners than for her cheerful temper and excellent housewifery." Her likeness is thus drawn, and all that we have read elsewhere concerning her confirms the truth of the portrait. Williamson says that ...

— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie

... Dorrit greatly. He was very friendly with a couple named Meagles—a comely, healthy, good-humored and kind-hearted pair, and he was so lonely he almost thought himself in love with their daughter "Pet" for a while. But Pet soon married a portrait-painter and ...

— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives

... mother opened the door, Tilly entered the parlor. For a second she stood and stared grimly about her. The furniture of the room was old-fashioned but in the best repair. There was a cabinet organ in one corner. A crayon portrait of Tilly's father (killed in the civil war) glared out of a florid gilt frame. Perhaps it was the fault of the portrait, but he had a peevish frown. There were two other portraits of him, large ghastly gray tintypes in oval frames ...

— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet

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