paint
Pluralpaints
Pluralpaints
Formspaints, painting, painted
- 1A liquid or paste applied to a surface that dries into a solid coating to protect the object or add color to it.
A fresh coat of paint made the whole kitchen feel new.
The artist mixed her own paint from ground pigment and oil.
Note
The physical sense the others build on. Behind both noun and verb lies Latin pingō, "to paint," which reached English through Old French and Middle English peynten and pushed out native Old English tēafor. As a mass noun it takes measure phrases, as in a fresh coat of paint. As a count noun, paints means different kinds of the substance.
- 2
- 3
- 4To engage in the art of making pictures with paint.
He paints in oils and prefers rugged coastal landscapes.
Plenty of retirees take up classes and learn to paint later in life.
- 5A collection of paints in a range of colors, held in small containers or solid cakes, for painting pictures.
He keeps his paint in a wooden case beside the easel.
The class shared one box of paint between four desks.
Note
Usually a plural, and the plural turns a substance into a kit. An artist who gets out their paints is fetching a whole set of colors, not a quantity of the coating substance. Jesse Guthrie's Catherine's Addiction (2007) has René, feeling inspired, who "got out his paints and started on a new painting." The word can also be used without the s, but the plural is the more common form.
- 6To depict or portray something vividly, especially through words, so that it forms a clear picture.
Like using words as brushstrokes to bring a scene to life in the listener's mind.
Skilled storytellers paint whole worlds with just a handful of words.
His memoir painted his childhood as both joyful and difficult.
Similardepict, portray, describe, picture, represent
Note
The figurative verb usually takes an as-phrase: a biography painted her as a duplicitous fraud, and Bankman-Fried's lawyer painted him as a "nerd." In reporting and argument the construction signals a portrayal someone chose, often a contested one. Shakespeare's paint out in Much Ado About Nothing and Pope's "we must paint it" (1735) show its older literary line.
- 7Cosmetics worn on the face, such as rouge or lipstick.
Her face was thick with paint for the evening stage show.
The actress wiped off her paint as soon as the curtain fell.
Similarmakeup, cosmetics, greasepaint
Note
Cosmetics thought of as a layer on the face, and the word often travels with powder: the paint and powder wiped from a dancer's face. As a mass noun it takes no plural in this meaning. The verb has a matching intransitive use in painting one's face.
- 8
- 9To cover something with spots or marks of color, as if with paint.
Wildflowers paint the meadow with bursts of color each spring.
The setting sun painted the clouds with streaks of pink.
Similarcolor, streak, splash, dapple, tinge
Note
Shakespeare's verb for color that arrives without a brush. In Love's Labour's Lost, cuckoo buds "do paint the meadows with delight," and in King John something is "not painted with the crimson spots of blood." It takes an object and a with-phrase naming the color, or poetically a feeling. Its subject is whatever produces the color, such as flowers or blood, rather than a painter. That sets it apart from applying actual paint.
- 10To apply color or cosmetics to one's face in order to look more attractive.
Actresses of the period painted lavishly before taking the stage.
Ladies who paint risk looking overdone in plain daylight.
Note
An intransitive verb with the face understood: one simply paints. Hamlet's "Let her paint an inch thick" shows the scorn it could carry, a jab at cosmetics as concealment. It is the verbal side of paint as makeup.
- 11In basketball, the rectangular painted area beneath the basket, also known as the free-throw lane.
He scored most of his points down in the paint.
The team's big men controlled the paint at both ends of the court.
Note
Court slang that always takes the article: players work in the paint, get to the paint and protect the paint. Points in the paint are tallied separately, as a measure of a team's inside game. A side strong on the outside but weak in the paint lacks muscle near the basket. Without the, listeners hear the ordinary coating.
- 12To draw an interface element, such as a button or window, onto the display.
The renderer paints each widget to the display during the refresh cycle.
Older systems paint controls one pixel row at a time.
Note
Programmers' verb for putting a window or control on screen, and usually it is the system that paints, not a person. Ernest R Tello's Object-oriented Programming for Windows (1991) describes an icon whose background must be filled before it is painted. Painting is the final drawing step, and it is often spoken of in the passive.
- 13The visual return an object produces on a radar display.
The destroyer's paint on the scope grew brighter as it closed in.
Fog gave a weak, scattered paint across the radar screen.
Note
Radar talk's noun for the bright mark itself, and it is countable: a 1973 International Conference on Radar paper prefers smaller target paints on a display. It is the noun partner of the radar verb, in which a set paints a target. The image is of the sweep laying a bright mark on the screen.
- 14To detect or track a target by illuminating it with radar.
The destroyer painted the low-flying aircraft as it crossed the bay.
Air-defense units paint hostile contacts long before they come into view.
Similarilluminate, track, detect
Note
Military and aviation slang, and the verb behind the radar return: what shows up on the screen has been painted. A radar paints a contact, and a forward controller promises to paint the target for the aircraft overhead. The word belongs to operational talk. In general writing it reads as jargon, so it is best kept to contexts where radar tracking is the subject.
- 15The dye-filled pellets fired from markers in the game of paintball.
She loaded fresh paint into her hopper between matches.
Cheap paint tends to bounce instead of breaking on impact.
Similarpaintballs
Note
Players' slang that treats the ammunition as a mass noun, the way one speaks of sand or water. You run low on paint, buy paint and load paint rather than counting balls. In the same talk, the launcher it feeds is a marker.
- 16Digital graphics created by hand with an input device, rather than scanned from an image or generated by software.
The artist's portfolio is mostly paint, drawn directly with a stylus.
The texture started as paint sketched on a tablet before any rendering.
Note
Mostly an attributive word in computing: paint software, a paint package, paint capabilities. Emil Ihrig's CorelDRAW! 4 made easy (1993) sets paint against photograph enhancement, and that is the useful contrast. Paint is imagery made stroke by stroke with an input device, not captured from a scan or produced by the program.
- 17Tattoo artwork covering a person's skin.
His back is covered in paint from years of sittings.
The biker wore decades of paint across both forearms.
Similarink
Note
Slang for tattoos taken as a whole, interchangeable with ink: someone has a lot of paint, or is covered in paint. It stays uncountable, so it describes coverage rather than individual designs. A single design is still a tattoo, never a paint.
- 18To apply a medicinal liquid to a body part with a brush.
The physician painted the inflamed tonsils with a solution of silver nitrate.
Dentists sometimes paint exposed gums with a numbing agent.
Note
Clinical usage with two constructions. The preparation can be the object (paint antiseptic onto the skin), or the body part can be (paint the throat with a solution). Either way the brush is the point: it separates painting from swabbing or spraying, and it ties this medical use to spreading like paint.
- 19A face card (king, queen, or jack) especially in poker.
He caught paint on the turn and paired up.
Her hole cards were both paint, giving her a promising start.
Note
Card-table slang for kings, queens and jacks taken together. It works without an article: a player catches paint or holds paint. That makes it handy for naming a type of card rather than a particular one. Away from the poker table, face card is the term most readers will recognize.
- 20Any substance set firm by being fixed with latex to harden it.
The craftsman brushed paint onto the mold to give it a rigid shell.
Once the paint cured, the molded piece held its shape permanently.
Note
A dated use for material stiffened by fixing it with latex, a wider meaning than most readers expect. Modern readers will take the word as the ordinary coating. Use it this way only when quoting or describing older practice, and otherwise name the material plainly.
- 21To deposit feces onto one's partner while engaging in anal sex.
He painted his lover by accident during their encounter.
Inexperienced couples sometimes paint each other without meaning to.
Note
Crude sexual slang, and a trap for the unwary: when a person is the object, the everyday verb can be heard this way. Keep it out of anything but frank adult talk. In casual speech, take care with phrasings like painting someone, where the double meaning could land.
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Practice
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Origin
From Middle English peynten, from Old French peintier, from paint, the past participle of paindre, which came from Latin pingō ("to paint"). It replaced the native Old English word tēafor.