PORTRAY • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Portray

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/pɔrtrˈeɪ/ Listen

verb

Portray v. t. (past & past part. portrayed; pres. part. portraying) (Written also pourtray)

To paint or draw the likeness of; as, to portray a king on horseback. "Take a tile, and lay it before thee, and portray upon it the city, even Jerusalem."

Hence, figuratively, to describe in words.

To adorn with pictures. (R.) "Spear and helmets thronged, and shields Various with boastful arguments potrayed."

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Etymology of 'Portray'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Portray" Quotes from Famous Books

... we essayed to portray or shadow out this noble imp of fame. But now the impatient reader will be apt to say, if so many and various graces go to the making up a hero, what mortal shall suffice to bear his character? Ill hath he read who seeth not, in every trace of this picture, ...

— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope

... visible for a one-mile radius around the Nautilus. What a sight! What pen could describe it? Who could portray the effects of this light through these translucent sheets of water, the subtlety of its progressive shadings into the ocean's upper and ...

— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... mathematician, a profound natural philosopher, an exact observer of nature, he was at the same time a learned statistician, an indefatigable social observer, an unwearied philanthropist, and the most powerful describer of nature that perhaps ever undertook to portray her great and glorious features. It is this extraordinary combination of qualities that render his works so surprising and valuable. The intellectual and imaginative powers rarely coexist in remarkable vigour in the same individual; but when they do, ...

— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... was still golden and bushy; but it was ragged and too long in front of the ears and also on his neck. His face still expressed insolence and vanity; but it had a certain tragic bitterness, as if it were trying to portray the emotions of a lofty spirit flinging defiance at destiny from a slough of despair. It was plain that he had been drinking heavily—the whites of his eyes were yellow and bloodshot, the muscles of his eyelids and mouth twitched ...

— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips

... must at once perceive how utterly impossible it would be for a victim nailed upon a cross by hands and feet to preserve the position invariably displayed in figures of the Crucifixion. Those who so portray it fail in what should be their most awful and agonizing effect. Think for one moment, and imagine, if you can, what would be the attitude of a man, living or dead, ...

— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

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