paint
/peɪnt
/noun
1 [mass noun] A coloured substance which is spread over a surface and dries to leave a thin decorative or protective coating: a tin of paint [count noun]: bituminous paints...
- Carpenters were now putting a fresh coating of paint on the house, making it look almost as though it had just been built.
- Watered-down paint soaks into the porous concrete so it won't flake or peel like surface paint does.
- We did test some acrylic paint on tiles and it was just totally unsatisfactory so we chose what, I guess, was the appropriate paint for the surface.
Synonyms
colouring, colourant, tint, dye, stain, pigment, wash, colour;
varnish
1.1 [count noun] An act of painting something: the house looked in need of a good paint...
- The walls needed a fresh paint, the floor needed vacuuming, and when was the last time I had dusted?
- Jaipur's date with the pink color goes back to 1905-06, when Jaipur city was getting ready to greet the Prince of Wales and needed a fresh paint all over.
1.2 informal Cosmetic make-up: one has false curls, another too much paint...
- Her hair was done up in glossy curls and her face bore paint used for makeup.
- He looked bizarre in a Rasta wig, a multi-coloured hat, a Caribbean-style shirt and brown make-up paint daubed over his face.
- If anti-Rococo critics claimed oil paint was too much like cosmetic paint, social critics held that the reverse was true.
1.3 Computing The function or capability of producing graphics, especially those that mimic the effect of real paint: [as modifier]: a paint program...
- Photoshop has long been a leader among graphics manipulation and paint software.
- Upgrade your ability to edit images with this free paint program.
- If the artwork isn't perfect, I fire up my paint program and make adjustments myself.
2North American A piebald horse: [as modifier]: a paint mare...
- Usually such markings were only found on paints, and yet he was a simple quarter horse.
- The program was successful at Paint of a Different Color the first year and Al ended up with a beautiful homozygous filly and a palomino paint colt.
- Less than a mile behind, the beam of light washed over another man; a man trotting alongside a paint horse.
3 [in singular] Basketball The rectangular area marked near the basket at each end of the court: the two players jostled in the paint...
- He has quick feet and enough moves to get three or four baskets in the paint.
- With Baylor and Chamberlain down in the paint, Counts was free to play away from the basket and use his great outside touch.
- It used to be a quick team, with small but tough players in the paint, good (but not great) shooters, and clever point guards.
verb [with object]
1Cover the surface of (something) with paint: [with object and complement]: the ceiling was painted dark grey (as adjective, with submodifier painted) a brightly painted caravan...
- The walls were painted a dark blue with gold lining on the ceiling and floor.
- The roof was made from sand paper cut and painted to resemble slates.
- It was noted that the railings of the Clodiagh Bridge had been freshly painted and that the river name signs looked well.
Synonyms
colour, apply paint to, decorate, tint, dye, stain, distemper, whitewash, emulsion, gloss, spray, spray-paint, airbrush, roller, coat, cover
daub, smear, plaster, spray, spray-paint, airbrush
1.1Apply cosmetics to (the skin): she couldn’t have been more than fourteen but her face was thickly painted...
- He'd painted his skin a whole different shade of beige.
- Hip, sophisticated and painted with Japanese cosmetics, the heroines move slickly through a life of nightclubbing, jet planes and media parties.
- Next was the easy part, or so I thought - sitting in a chair for a few hours, doing nothing but having my skin painted.
1.2Apply (a liquid) to a surface with a brush.The film opens with a pre-title sequence that shows a close-up of a brush as it paints a large black spot on a blank canvas....
- With his free hand, he picked up a small paint brush and resumed painting the concave interior, where a detailed scene of army camp life was almost complete.
- All that you need to do is paint the clear liquid dots all over your boat.
1.3 (paint something out) Obliterate something with paint: the markings on the plane were hurriedly painted out...
- In fact, Hopper had originally included a figure in the upper storey, but later painted it out.
- He added: ‘I will be more than happy myself to simply turn up one Saturday morning and paint the lines out.’
- A vandal would have to go out, buy some Liquid Paper and paint the mustache out in order to deface it.
2Depict (someone or something) or produce (a picture) with paint: I painted a woman sitting next to a table lamp he paints landscapes and portraits...
- ‘In these pictures I have painted people who go to Bridge House and being a part of my pictures gives them confidence in their own abilities’.
- My best holiday was with Leo, the artist who'd painted me, and his wife Gemma one summer.
- In 1995, he commissioned a Chinese artist to paint him together with his wife, son and daughter.
Synonyms
portray, picture, paint a picture of, depict, delineate, draw, sketch, represent, catch (a likeness of);
reproduce, illustrate, render
2.1Give a description of: the city is not as bad as it is painted...
- Though the mystical element is rather missing from his character here, Adès paints Prospero as a wonderfully vengeful mage.
- The author paints a clear and useful description of the science of color.
- The remake of Casino Royale, the first Bond novel, will concentrate instead on the character of the spy, painted by Ian Fleming in the book as a suave, coldly aggressive seducer.
Synonyms
tell, recount, narrate, set forth/out, outline, sketch, detail, unfold, describe, depict, characterize, evoke, conjure up
2.2 Computing Create (a graphic or screen display) using a paint program: the program enables you to paint images on your screen...
- An aggregate of about 400 gigaflops was needed to paint a semi-realistic image of a compact car on a display screen.
- Two-dimensional cartoons are no longer created by tracing and painting but assembled on computer screens using software like Director and After Effects.
- First, the quality of the phosphors available in the early days was not that great, and the dots would start to fade out before the entire screen could be painted.
3Display a mark representing (an aircraft or vehicle) on a radar screen: flying behind hills lessens the enemy’s ability to paint you with radar...
- On August 15, the boat was on a routine patrol when its radar painted a vessel at about 12 nm.
- After being airborne for a half-hour, we painted a few contacts about 70 miles north.
Phrases
like watching paint dry
paint a picture of
paint oneself into a corner
paint the town red
Phrasal verbs
paint up
Derivatives
paintable
- Apart from the squared off potholes, the view on both sides was magnificently paintable.
- After the surface has been thoroughly dried, apply one coat of a paintable water repellent preservative or water repellent to the bare wood, being careful to liberally treat end and lap joints.
- Fill the cracks between the old and new boards (the 1/8-inch cracks left from before) with paintable caulk.
painty
- He held out his painty hands as though a cat's cradle was strung up between them.
- When I got back, the paint was dry, so I got on with the second coat and ended up almost as painty as I had been before I went to the gym.
- After painting this room, the decorators decided to tip their buckets of painty, murky water down a sink by the wall.
Origin
Middle English: from peint 'painted', past participle of Old French peindre, from Latin pingere 'to paint'.
Paint is from Old French peint ‘painted’, from Latin pingere ‘to paint’. To paint the town red dates from the late 19th century. It is first found in the USA which puts in doubt the story that it comes from an occasion in 1837 when Marquis of Waterford and some young friends ran riot in the Leicestershire town of Melton Mowbray and painted some of the buildings red. An alternative interpretation is that revellers were thought of as having such a wild time that they treated the entire town like a red light district. Paint yourself into a corner, from the image of someone painting a floor and forgetting to start near a doorway to avoid crossing the wet paint, arose in the 1970s. Painter (Middle English) goes back to Latin pictor which also gives us picturesque (early 18th century) the spelling changed to fit with picture.