portrait

plural portraits · alternative obsolete pourtraict

1. countableA painting or other picture of a person, especially the head and shoulders.

   In portraits, the grace, and, we may add, the likeness, consists more in the general air than in the exact similitude of every feature.

   a. 1792, Joshua Reynolds, Discourses on Painting and the Fine Arts

   1 more example

   Megan Sixsmith sits on a low bench in the Buenas Yerbas Museum of Modern Art and stares back at a giant portrait of an old lady’s ursine face, rendered in interlacing grey and black lines on a canvas otherwise blank. The only figurative in a room of Pollocks, de Koonings and Mirós, the portrait quietly startles.

   2004, David Mitchell, “Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery”, in Cloud Atlas, London: Sceptre (Hodder and Stoughton), →ISBN, page 428

2. countablefigurativelyAn accurate depiction of a person, a mood, etc.

   The author painted a good portrait of urban life in New York in his latest book.

   1 more example

   She showed me her portrait, written by herself. I only remember what she states of her mouth, which, she says, was not only beautiful and red, but had a thousand little natural airs and graces not to be found in any other mouth. Oh, I must not forget her figure, which, she assured the reader, was the best-made and the finest that could be seen: nothing could be more regular, more graceful, or more easy.

   1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, pages 232–233

3. countableuncountablecomputingA print orientation where the vertical sides are longer than the horizontal sides.

present singular third person portraits · participle present portraiting · participle past portraited · past portraited · alternative obsolete pourtraict

1. obsoleteTo portray; to draw.

   Methinkes yᵉ picture of Sᵗ George fighting with yᵉ Dragon hath some resemblance of Sᵗ Michael fighting with the Devil, who is pourtrated like a Dragon.

   1687, John Aubrey, Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme, page 69

   1 more example

   But all as in most exquisite pictures, they vse to blaze and portrait, not only the daintie lineaments or beautie, but also round about it to shadowe the rude thickets and craggy clifts

   1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], The Shepheardes Calender: […], London: […] Hugh Singleton, […], →OCLC

alternative obsolete pourtraict

1. not comparableRepresenting the actual features of an individual; not ideal.

   a portrait bust; a portrait statue