out of the picture

prepositional phrase

Not included in the matter being planned or under consideration; not a factor or participant in the present situation.

Opposite
in the picture
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Meanings

prepositional phrase
  1. idiomaticNot included in the matter being planned or under consideration; not a factor or participant in the present situation.

    "Well, since Ross is pretty much out of the picture, you're sitting in the driver's seat."

    1986, Margaret Truman, Murder at the FBI, →ISBN, page 191
    3 more examples

    Within a year, his scientists had worked out a system that virtually elbowed CBS out of the picture.

    1966 October 7, “Executives: Man of the Future”, in Time

    By mid-2004, confident that deflation was out of the picture, the Fed began raising rates again.

    2007 July 19, Justin Fox, “The End of Easy Money”, in Time

    Finance is seldom romantic. But the idea of peer-to-peer lending comes close. This is an industry that brings together individual savers and lenders on online platforms.[…]Banks and credit-card firms are kept out of the picture. Talk to enough people in the field and someone is bound to mention the “democratisation of finance”.

    2013 June 1, “End of the peer show”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 71
  2. euphemisticidiomaticDead, missing, or incarcerated.
  3. datedidiomaticNot suiting or attuned to the situation; incongruous.

    Magda devoting her life to good works seemed altogether out of the picture!

    1921, Margaret Pedler, chapter 30, in The Lamp of Fate
    2 more examples

    Harden-Hickey, in our day, was as incongruous a figure as was the American at the Court of King Arthur; he was as unhappily out of the picture as would be Cyrano de Bergerac on the floor of the Board of Trade.

    1906, Richard Harding Davis, “Baron James Harden Hickey”, in Real Soldiers of Fortune

    Only Peter was out of the picture. He was a strange, disconsolate figure, as he shifted about to ease his leg, or gazed incuriously from the window.

    1919, John Buchan, chapter 20, in Mr. Standfast

Synonyms & antonyms

Opposite
in the picture

Translations

Hebrew מחוץ לתמונה
  • מחוץ לתמונהnot included
Swedish finns inte på kartan, inte finnas på kartan
  • finns inte på kartannot included
  • inte finnas på kartannot included
Cite this entry
APA

out of the picture. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/out%20of%20the%20picture

MLA

“out of the picture.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/out%20of%20the%20picture. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “out of the picture,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/out%20of%20the%20picture.

Source: out of the picture on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.