📒 a painting or drawing, etc. that shows a scene, a person or thing
- He likes books with lots of pictures in them.
- picture of somebody/something A picture of flowers hung on the wall.
- The children were drawing pictures of their pets.
📒 a photograph
- to take a picture
- We had our picture taken in front of the hotel.
- The picture shows the couple together on their yacht.
📒 an image on a television screen
- harrowing television pictures of the famine
- You are looking at live pictures of midtown Manhattan.
- poor picture quality
📒 a description that gives you an idea in your mind of what something is like
- We've only got scraps of information, not the full picture.
- picture of something The writer paints a gloomy picture of the economy.
- a bleak/grim picture of the future
📒 a mental image or memory of something
- I have a vivid picture of my grandfather smiling down at me when I was very small.
- He uses imagery to form mental pictures within the mind of the reader.
- She had formed a picture of what the place would look like and was very disappointed.
📒 the general situation relating to somebody/something
- Just a few years ago the picture was very different.
- The overall picture for farming is encouraging.
- The documentary was interesting but it didn't give the full picture.
📒 a film
- The movie won nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
- in pictures (especially North American English) I believe her husband's in pictures (= he acts in movies or works in the movie industry).
📒 the cinema
- Shall we go to the pictures tonight?
📒 very pretty
- She’s as pretty as a picture.
📒 to look very beautiful or special
- The garden looks a picture in the summer.
📒 to look extremely healthy, guilty, unhappy, etc.
📒 the situation as a whole
- Right now forget the details and take a look at the big picture.
📒 to understand a situation, especially one that somebody is describing to you
- ‘I pretended that I hadn't heard.’ ‘I get the picture.’
📒 involved/not involved in a situation
- Morris is likely to win, with Jones out of the picture now.
📒 to describe somebody/something in a particular way; to give a particular impression of somebody/something
- The report paints a vivid picture of life in the city.
- Journalists paint a grim picture of conditions in the camps.
- He didn't paint a very pretty picture of city life.
📒 to give somebody the information they need in order to understand a situation
- Just to put you in the picture—there have been a number of changes here recently.