picturesque
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Alternative forms
- picture-skew (humorous)
Etymology
From picture + -esque, a calque of Italian pittoresco, from pittura (“a picture, painting”).
Pronunciation
Adjective
picturesque (comparative more picturesque, superlative most picturesque)
- Resembling or worthy of a picture or painting; having the qualities of a picture or painting; pleasingly beautiful.
- We looked down onto a beautiful, picturesque sunset over the ocean.
- 1900, Charles W[addell] Chesnutt, “A Stranger from South Carolina”, in The House Behind the Cedars, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company […], →OCLC, page 3:
- A two minutes' walk brought Warwick—the name he had registered under, and as we shall call him—to the market-house, the central feature of Patesville, from both the commercial and the picturesque points of view.
- 1946 March and April, R. A. H. Weight, “Euston to the North-West”, in Railway Magazine, page 71:
- A dear old lady said she thought the ancient castle at Conway most picturesque, but that it was a pity they put it so close to the railway!
- (figurative, by extension) Strikingly graphic or vivid; having striking and vivid imagery.
- picturesque language
Synonyms
Derived terms
Translations
resembling a picture or painting
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Further reading
- “picturesque”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- “picturesque”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
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