DictionaryAI

portray

verb
USpor-TRAY/pɔɹˈtɹeɪ/Saypaw-TRAYUK/pɔːˈtɹeɪ/AUS/poːˈtɹæɪ/

Formsportrays, portraying, portrayed

5 meanings of portray

Practice

  1. 1
    verbtransitive
    To act out a role, or to depict a character, person, situation, or event in a performance or work.

    The film portrays the final days of a fallen empire.

    Directors asked him to portray the villain with a hint of sympathy.

    Similarplay, depict, dramatize, enact, act

  2. 2
    verbfigurativelytransitive
    To describe something in words, conveying a particular impression of it.

    Such accounts portray the era as one of endless conflict.

    The biography portrays him as a reluctant leader.

    Similardepict, describe, present, paint, characterize

  3. 3
    verbfigurativelytransitive
    To represent something by means of an image or visual likeness.

    Stained-glass windows portray scenes from ancient stories.

    The sculpture portrays grief through a single bowed figure.

    Similardepict, represent, show, illustrate

    Note

    Here the image is a face or a look, not a canvas. Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great (c. 1587–1588) has "ugly death" pourtraid upon a man's brows, in the spelling of its day, while the furies of his heart shine in his eyes. Notice the construction: an emotion is portrayed on or upon the face that shows it, so the face does the work a painter's brush would.

  4. 4
    verbtransitive
    To paint or draw the likeness of a person or thing.

    Court painters were hired to portray the king in full regalia.

    The portrait portrays the merchant holding a pair of scales.

    Similardepict, paint, draw, represent, picture

Less common meaning

  1. 5
    verbobsolete
    To adorn or decorate something with ornament.
    Note

    A lost use in which the verb meant decorating a surface rather than rendering a likeness of it. It has no safe place in current English. A modern reader who meets walls "portrayed" with frescoes will hear the painter's sense and take the walls as the subject of a picture. When you mean ornament today, write adorn.

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Origin

The word comes from Middle English "portray," which came from the Middle French word "portraire."