DictionaryAI

describe

verb
di-SKRYB/dɪˈskɹaɪb/

Formsdescribes, describing, described

4 meanings of describe

Practice

  1. 1
    put in wordsverbtransitive
    To represent a person, thing, or event in words; to give an account of what it is like.

    The witness described the suspect to the police.

    Reviewers struggled to describe the film's strange ending.

    UsageSay describe the room to me (not incorrect: describe me the room). Describe X as Y gives a label: described it as a triumph.

    Similarportray, depict, characterize, detail, outline

  2. 2
    name new speciesverbtransitive
    To formally introduce a new species or other taxon to science by setting out its characteristics and how it differs from related taxa.

    Before a team can describe a new species, it must compare its specimens with those of every close relative already known.

    Taxonomists must describe each new species according to strict naming rules.

    UsageMost often passive, with by for the scientist: the frog was first described by a zoologist in 1920.

    Note

    Taxonomists use the word for the formal act that brings a species into science. The phrase first described marks that original formal account, and an informal description of a familiar plant does not count.

  3. 3
    trace shapeverbtransitive
    To draw or trace out a line or shape, or to move along a path that forms one, as a point moving along a curve does.

    The skater described a graceful arc across the ice.

    Planets describe ellipses as they travel around the sun.

    Note

    Drawing was part of the word from the start, since the Latin source traced under the everyday "put into words" sense could also mean to sketch in painting. The subject is usually whatever moves, such as a paddle, a torch or a writhing body, and the object is the path it leaves: in Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans, Uncas described an arc in the water. Nothing needs to be drawn on paper, because the shape exists only in the motion.

    Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

Less common meaning

  1. 4
    verbobsoletetransitive
    To divide things into parts or categories, or mark out their boundaries.
    Passed through the land, and described it by cities into seven parts in a book.
    1611, The Holy Bible, King James Version
    Note

    This obsolete sense survives in the King James Bible of 1611, where the land is "described … by cities into seven parts in a book." The pattern is describe something into parts, often with by naming the principle of division. A modern reader will tend to hear "wrote an account of," so it is better to quote this use than to imitate it. Today the natural verb is divide.

    Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

    • The sense meaning to distribute into parts or mark off is obsolete. en.wiktionary.org
    • The King James Bible was first published in 1611. wwwe.lib.cam.ac.uk
    • Joshua 18:9 contains the quoted wording about describing the land by cities into seven parts in a book. gutenberg.org

Practice

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Origin

This word comes from Latin dēscrībō ("I copy off, transcribe, sketch, or describe in writing or painting"), formed from dē ("off") plus scrībō ("write"), and related to scribe and shrive. It passed through Old French descrivre and Middle English descriven, replacing the native Old English āmearcian.

Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 8 facts