blueprint
Americannoun
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blueprints
plural
verb (used with object)
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blueprints,
present (3rd person singular)
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blueprinted,
past participle, past
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blueprinting
present participle
noun
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Also called: cyanotype. a photographic print of plans, technical drawings, etc, consisting of white lines on a blue background
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an original plan or prototype that influences subsequent design or practice
the Montessori method was the blueprint for education in the 1940s
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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blueprintsimple
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blueprintssimple
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have blueprintedperfect
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has blueprintedperfect
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am blueprintingprogressive
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are blueprintingprogressive
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is blueprintingprogressive
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have been blueprintingperfect progressive
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has been blueprintingperfect progressive
Past
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blueprintedsimple
-
had blueprintedperfect
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was blueprintingprogressive
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were blueprintingprogressive
-
had been blueprintingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of blueprint
Explanation
A blueprint is a guide for making something — it's a design or pattern that can be followed. Want to build the best tree house ever? Draw up a blueprint and follow the design carefully. The literal meaning of a blueprint is a paper — which is blue — with plans for a building printed on it. You can also call other guides or plans blueprints. The way you do your homework every night could provide a blueprint for your little sister’s study habits. A business plan is a blueprint for a profitable business. Religions and philosophies provide the blueprint for many people’s lives. A blueprint helps you figure out what to do.
Vocabulary lists containing blueprint
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"Our work provides a blueprint for designing better materials that can bring down the cost of green hydrogen," said Stylianou, who directs OSU's Materials Discovery Laboratory, known as the MaD Lab.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 4, 2026
You wanted to intern for them, but ended up creating your own thing and now Soulection is a blueprint for others.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 3, 2026
The chefs at the festival weren’t offering a single blueprint for how to accomplish that.
From Salon ● Sep. 27, 2026
The shift set them apart across Asia and helped establish the blueprint for modern self-produced acts such as BTS.
From BBC ● Sep. 27, 2026
But he’s not an outlier for the reasons you might think, and the story of his rise provides a blueprint for understanding success in his profession.
From "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell
The group has been drawing up blueprints for a Cuban stock exchange and an investment summit in Havana.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 21, 2026
That’s warp speed compared with how long it takes to turn nuclear-reactor blueprints into power plants.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
Trump walked part of the property and inspected blueprints in view of reporters; he was then driven by the site where he wants to erect a marble arch.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 2, 2026
Instead of manufacturing the processors themselves, Arm designs the blueprints and licenses its intellectual property to tech companies.
From Barron's ● Jun. 5, 2026
With blueprints in hand he tramped through the Japanese community—to hostels, trailer courts, other housing projects like ours— trying to find families who would invest in it.
From "Farewell to Manzanar" by Jeanne Houston
The National Guard's Special Immediate Reaction Force blueprinted the operation for the assault on Sunday with both land and air maneuvers.
From Barron's ● Feb. 23, 2026
“Marquee Moon” is both architectonic and disorienting, blueprinted and unpredictable.
From New York Times ● Jan. 29, 2023
Many of the songs we do are blueprinted on both sides of the Atlantic.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 17, 2022
It’s not merely the stratospheric box-office expectations, but also the need – under the cinematic-universe model blueprinted by Marvel – for each film to fit the aesthetic and actors into a larger whole.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 15, 2017
Presumably it was not thought out and blueprinted in advance but worked out by trial and error, episode by episode, step by step—perhaps, also, leap by leap.
From Civilization and Beyond Learning from History by Scott Nearing
Herschel called the technique cyanotyping, but it is better known today as blueprinting.
From Scientific American ● Mar. 29, 2021
For the coalition of local officials, businesses and nonprofits leading the way, the blueprinting of the city presents an intensely varied task.
From Forbes ● May 19, 2015
In the 1930s he deeply influenced today's theater design by blueprinting expandable stages and semicircular projection screens.
From Time Magazine Archive
Boss Engineer Luke Hobbs was also blueprinting the designs for a different type.
From Time Magazine Archive
They are blueprinting airplane factories and plush government offices.
From Time Magazine Archive
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
