a picture paints a thousand words

A form of a picture is worth a thousand words — A visualisation is a better description than a verbal description.

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Meanings

proverb
  1. alternativeAlternative form of a picture is worth a thousand words.

    See accompanying diagram: a picture paints a thousand words, and all that!

    2006, Paul Shakespeare, Building a Dune Buggy: The Essential Manual, →ISBN, page 52
    2 more examples

    If a picture paints a thousand words Then why can't I paint you; The words will never show The you I've come to know.

    1971, David Gates (of Bread), If, from Manna album

    Most human beings, no matter how familiar they are with abstract symbols, respond to voice and images better than written language. In other words, A picture paints a thousand words.

    1989, Alan Kay, quoted in Kʻo-tung Huang, Timothy D. Huang, Introduction to Chinese, Japanese and Korean Computing, World Scientific, p. 9
Cite this entry
APA

a picture paints a thousand words. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/a%20picture%20paints%20a%20thousand%20words

MLA

“a picture paints a thousand words.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/a%20picture%20paints%20a%20thousand%20words. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “a picture paints a thousand words,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/a%20picture%20paints%20a%20thousand%20words.

Source: a picture paints a thousand words on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.