description

English

Etymology

From Middle English descripcioun, from Old French description and its etymon, Latin dēscrīptiō, noun of action of dēscrībō (“I describe”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dɪˈskɹɪpʃən/, /dəˈskɹɪpʃən/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

description (countable and uncountable, plural descriptions)

1. A sketch or account of anything in words; a portraiture or representation in language; an enumeration of the essential qualities of a thing or species.

   give a verbal description of the events

   a realistic description

2. The act of describing; a delineation by marks or signs.
3. A set of characteristics by which someone or something can be recognized.

   The zoo had no lions, tigers, or cats of any description.

4. (taxonomy) A scientific documentation of a taxon for the purpose of introducing it to science.

   The type description of the fungus was written by a botanist.

5. (linguistics) The act or practice of recording and describing actual language usage in a given speech community, as opposed to prescription, i.e. laying down norms of language usage.
6. (linguistics) A descriptive linguistic survey.

Synonyms

• (characteristics): sort, kind, type, variety

Derived terms

• audiodescription
• audio description
• beggar description
• charge description master
• descriptional
• descriptionally
• descriptionism
• descriptionist
• descriptionistic
• descriptionless
• description logic
• description word
• hardware description language
• ideographic description sequence
• job description
• metadescription
• misdescription
• nondescription
• nondescriptional
• of any description
• of some description
• overdescription
• redescription
• videodescription
• video description

Related terms

• describe
• descriptive

Translations

account in words

• Albanian: përshkrim (sq) m
• Arabic: وَصْف m (waṣf), تَوْصِيف m (tawṣīf), تَصْوِير m (taṣwīr), تَفْصِيل m (tafṣīl)
• Armenian: նկարագրություն (hy) (nkaragrutʻyun)
• Azerbaijani: təsvir (az)
• Belarusian: апіса́нне n (apisánnje)
• Bengali: বয়ান (bn) (boẏan)
• Bulgarian: описа́ние (bg) n (opisánie)
• Burmese: ဖေါ်ပြချက် (hpau-pra.hkyak)
• Catalan: descripció (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 描寫 / 描写 (zh) (miáoxiě), 描述 (zh) (miáoshù)

• Czech: popis (cs) m
• Danish: beskrivelse (da) c
• Dutch: beschrijving (nl) f, descriptie (nl) f
• Esperanto: priskribo
• Estonian: kirjeldus
• Finnish: kuvaus (fi), selitys (fi)
• French: description (fr) f
• Galician: descrición (gl) f
• Georgian: აღწერა (ka) (aɣc̣era)
• German: Beschreibung (de) f, Deskription (de) f
• Greek: περιγραφή (el) f (perigrafí)

  Ancient: ἔκφρασις f (ékphrasis), περιήγησις f (periḗgēsis)

• Hebrew: תיאור \ תֵּאוּר (he) m (te'ur)
• Hindi: विवरण (hi) m (vivraṇ), वर्णन (hi) m (varṇan), व्याख्या (hi) f (vyākhyā)
• Hungarian: leírás (hu)
• Icelandic: lýsing (is) f
• Ido: deskripto (io)
• Indonesian: deskripsi (id)
• Italian: descrizione (it) f
• Japanese: 記述 (ja) (きじゅつ, kijutsu), 説明 (ja) (せつめい, setsumei), 描写 (ja) (びょうしゃ, byōsha)
• Kazakh: баяндау (baändau), сипаттау (sipattau)
• Khmer: ពិពណ៌នា (km) (pipɔəniə), ពណ៌នា (km) (pɔənaʼniə), ព្យាករណ៍ (km) (pyiəkɑɑ)
• Korean: 묘사(描寫) (ko) (myosa), 기술(記述) (ko) (gisul), 서술(敍述) (ko) (seosul), 설명(說明) (ko) (seolmyeong)
• Kurdish:

  Central Kurdish: وەسف (ckb) (wesf)

• Kyrgyz: баяндоо (ky) (bayandoo), сыпаттоо (sıpattoo)
• Ladino: deskripsion f
• Lao: ການພັນລະນາ (kān phan la nā)
• Latin: dēscrīptiō (la) f
• Latvian: apraksts m, attēlojums m
• Ligurian: descriçion
• Lithuanian: aprašymas (lt) m
• Macedonian: опис m (opis)
• Maori: whakaahuatanga
• Meänkieli: kuvvailu
• Mongolian:

  Cyrillic: тодорхойлолт (mn) (todorxojlolt), дүрслэл (mn) (dürslel), тайлбар (mn) (tajlbar)

• Moroccan Amazigh: ⴰⴳⵍⴰⵎ m (aglam)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: beskrivelse (no) m

• Occitan: descripcion (oc)
• Oromo: ibsa
• Pashto: توصيف (ps) m (tawsīf), تصوير (ps) m (taswīr)
• Persian: توصیف (fa) (towsif), وصف (fa) (vasf), تصویر (fa) (tasvir)
• Polish: opis (pl) m
• Portuguese: descrição (pt) f
• Romanian: descripție (ro), descriere (ro)
• Russian: описа́ние (ru) n (opisánije)
• Scots: descreeption
• Scottish Gaelic: tuairisgeul m
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: о̀пис m

  Roman: òpis (sh) m

• Slovak: popis m
• Slovene: opis (sl) m
• Spanish: descripción (es) f
• Swedish: beskrivning (sv) c
• Tagalog: paglalarawan, deskripsyon (tl)
• Tajik: тавсиф (tavsif), тасвир (tg) (tasvir), васф (vasf)
• Tatar: тасвир (tt) (taswir), тасвирлама (tt) (taswirlama)
• Telugu: వర్ణన (te) (varṇana)
• Thai: การพรรณนา (th) (gaan-pan-ná-naa)
• Tibetan: འགྲེལ་བཤད། ('grel bshad)
• Turkish: tanım (tr), tavsif (tr)
• Turkmen: beýan (tk)
• Ukrainian: о́пис m (ópys)
• Urdu: بَیان m (bayān)
• Uyghur: تەسۋىر (teswir)
• Uzbek: tasvir (uz), tavsif (uz), vasf (uz)
• Vietnamese: sự miêu tả (vi), sự mô tả (vi)
• Yiddish: באַשרײַבונג f (bashraybung), באַשרײַבעכץ n (bashraybekhts)

act of describing

• Estonian: kirjeldamine
• Finnish: kuvailu (fi), kuvaaminen (fi)
• Hindi: विवरण (hi) m (vivraṇ), व्याख्या (hi) f (vyākhyā)
• Lithuanian: apibūdinimas m
• Russian: описа́ние (ru) n (opisánije)
• Tatar: тасвирлау (taswirlaw)
• Thai: การพรรณนา (th) (gaan-pan-ná-naa)
• Tibetan: ངོ་སྤྲོད་བྱེད་པ། (ngo sprod byed pa)

set of characteristics

• Bulgarian: описа́ние (bg) n (opisánie)
• Finnish: määritelmä (fi)
• French: signalement (fr)
• Hungarian: leírás (hu), személyleírás (hu)
• Irish: comharthaí m pl, comharthaí aithne m pl, comharthaí sóirt m pl
• Russian: описа́ние (ru) n (opisánije)
• Scottish Gaelic: tuairisgeul m
• Spanish: señalamiento
• Swedish: signalement (sv)
• Tibetan: ཁས་གསལ་བའི་བྱིན་གྲངས། (khas gsal ba'i byin grangs)
• Turkish: vasif
• Yiddish: באַשרײַבונג f (bashraybung), באַשרײַבעכץ n (bashraybekhts)

taxonomy: scientific documentation of a taxon

• Finnish: kuvaus (fi)
• Japanese: 記載 (ja) (きさい, kisai)
• Tibetan: རིག་གནས་ཀྱི་དོན་སྤྲོད་དངོས་འཛིན། (rig gnas kyi don sprod dngos 'dzin)

linguistics: act or practice of recording and describing actual language usage

• Finnish: kuvailu (fi)
• Tibetan: སྐད་སྒྲ་གོ་རྒྱུ་བཤད་མཁས་གྲུབ། (skad sgra go rgyu bshad mkhas grub)

linguistics: descriptive linguistic survey

• Finnish: kuvaileva tutkimus
• Tibetan: སྐད་ཡིག་ངོ་སྤྲོད་ཞིབ་འཇུག། (skad yig ngo sprod zhib 'jug)

See also

• prescription
• descriptivism

Further reading

• “description”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “description”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

See also

• synopsis
• interpretation

Anagrams

• discerption, predictions

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin dēscriptiōnem.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dɛs.kʁip.sjɔ̃/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Homophone: descriptions

Noun

description f (plural descriptions)

1. description

Related terms

• décrire
• descriptif

Further reading

• “description”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Old French

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin dēscriptiō.

Noun

description oblique singular, f (oblique plural descriptions, nominative singular description, nominative plural descriptions)

1. description

Related terms

• descrivre