PORTRAIT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does portrait mean? 

• PORTRAIT (noun)
  The noun PORTRAIT has 2 senses:

1. a word picture of a person's appearance and character

2. any likeness of a person, in any medium

  Familiarity information: PORTRAIT used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PORTRAIT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A word picture of a person's appearance and character

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

portrait; portraiture; portrayal

Hypernyms ("portrait" is a kind of...):

characterisation; characterization; delineation; depiction; picture; word-painting; word picture (a graphic or vivid verbal description)

Derivation:

portray (portray in words)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Any likeness of a person, in any medium

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

portrait; portrayal

Context example:

the photographer made excellent portraits

Hypernyms ("portrait" is a kind of...):

likeness; semblance (picture consisting of a graphic image of a person or thing)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "portrait"):

half-length (a portrait showing the body from only the waist up)

self-portrait (a portrait of yourself created by yourself)

 Context examples 

Finally, her handsome features looked down on her darling from a portrait on the wall, as if it were even something to her that her likeness should watch him while he slept.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Would I sketch a portrait of her, to show to papa?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

He read the magazines about himself, and pored over portraits of himself published therein until he was unable to associate his identity with those portraits.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

A portrait—very like—of a departed wife, not valued by the husband!

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

I took it; it was a portrait of a most lovely woman.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

In the gallery there were many family portraits, but they could have little to fix the attention of a stranger.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

She had soon fixed on the size and sort of portrait.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

You were thinking that if the portrait were framed it would just cover that bare space and correspond with Gordon’s picture over there.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She could soon tell at what coachmaker's the new carriage was building, by what painter Mr. Willoughby's portrait was drawn, and at what warehouse Miss Grey's clothes might be seen.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

The portraits themselves seemed to be staring in astonishment.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)