depicture

From de- +‎ picture; formed under the influence of depict.

depicture (third-person singular simple present depictures, present participle depicturing, simple past and past participle depictured)

1. (transitive, archaic) To make a picture or representation of.

   Synonyms: depict, portray, render

   • 1596, Thomas Lodge, A Margarite of America, London: John Busbie,

     The bed appointed for the prince to rest himselfe, was of blacke Ebonie enchased which Rubies, Diamons and Carbun[c]ls […] on which by degrees mans state from infancie to his olde age was plainly depictured,

   • 1749 Henry Fielding, A Journey from this World to the Next, Book 1, Chapter 3, in The Works of Henry Fielding, London: J. Johnson et al., 1806, Volume 4, pp. 339-340,

     I next mounted through a large painted staircase, where several persons were depictured in caricatura;

2. (transitive, archaic) To represent in words.

   Synonyms: describe, depict, portray

   • 1825, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, London: William Pickering, 1836, “Moral and Religious Aphorisms,” p. 85,

     The modern Fiction which depictures the son of Cytherea [i.e. Eros] with a bandage round his eyes, is not without a spiritual meaning. There is a sweet and holy Blindness in Christian LOVE […]

   • 1862, Ellen Wood (as Mrs. Henry Wood), Life’s Secret, London: Charles W. Wood, 1867, Volume 2, Chapter 9, p. 192,

     You have seen some of its [the dispute’s] disastrous working upon the men: you cannot see it all, for it would take a whole volume to depicture it.

   • 1886, Richard Francis Burton (translator), Supplemental Nights to The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, London: The Burton Club, “The Tale of the Prince who fell in love with the Picture,” p. 229,

     Now as soon as the goldsmith saw her, he knew her (for that the Prince had talked with him of her and had depictured her to him) […]

3. (transitive, archaic) To give visual evidence of (referring to a person's facial expression or appearance)

   Synonyms: reflect, show, indicate, betoken

   • 1790, Ann Radcliffe, A Sicilian Romance, London: T. Hookham, Volume 2, Chapter 12, p. 115,

     […] he entered the church with a proud firm step, and with a countenance which depictured his inward triumph;

   • 1845, Thomas Cooper, “London ’Venture; or, The Old Story Over Again” in Wise Saws and Modern Instances, London: Jeremiah How, Volume 1, p. 58,

     A look, depicturing such agony as Ingram never saw before, in the face of man, accompanied this declaration on the part of his friend […]

   • 1910, anonymous, “The State of Arkansaw” in John A. Lomax, Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads, New York: Sturgis & Walton, p. 227,

     I followed my conductor into his dwelling place;

     Poverty were depictured in his melancholy face.

4. (transitive, archaic) To form a mental image of.

   Synonyms: imagine, picture

   • 1909, James Branch Cabell, The Cords of Vanity, New York: Doubleday, Page, Chapter 30, p. 326,

     […] I would depicture her, a foiled and wistful little wraith, very lonely in eternity […]

• depicturement

depicture (plural depictures)

1. (archaic) The act or result of depicturing something or someone.

   Synonym: depiction

   • 1876, George Parsons Lathrop, A Study of Hawthorne, Boston: James R. Osgood, Chapter 8, p. 237,

     The conception of a misdeed operating through several generations […] was a novel one at the time; this graphic depicture of the past at work upon the present has anticipated a great deal of the history and criticism of the following twenty-five years […]

   • 1914, Arnold Haultain, Of Walks and Walking Tours, London: T. Werner Laurie, Chapter 8, p. 31,

     No pen could do them justice; and, among painters, only the brush of a Corot could attempt their depicture without depriving them of their exquisite, their almost evanescent, softness.

   • 1972, Stanley Bertram Chrimes, Henry VII, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, Appendix F: “Portraiture of Henry VII and Queen Elizabeth,” p. 333,

     Three other depictures of Henry VII are known to have been made during his lifetime.