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
The Ingenious Lexicon of Invention
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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:
The findings therefore provide a general blueprint for building many future quantum materials, rather than offering only one isolated discovery.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 8, 2026
Australia, where one in three homes now has rooftop panels, offered a clear blueprint for the Philippines, he said.
From Barron's ● Aug. 5, 2026
Equally significant, the bill offers a viable blueprint for immigration reform—one that may be achievable after the midterm elections.
From Slate ● Aug. 4, 2026
Their research transformed a regional way of eating into one of the world's best-known diets; a blueprint for healthy living.
From BBC ● Jul. 25, 2026
Mum was looking stonier and stonier as the rockery in the garden and the rockery in her blueprint got more and more different.
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
Instead of manufacturing the processors themselves, Arm designs the blueprints and licenses its intellectual property to tech companies.
From Barron's ● Jun. 5, 2026
Reports claim that some workers did not bring mandatory tracking devices into the mines, and blueprints provided by the Liushenyu coal mine to authorities did not match the conditions at the mine, complicating rescue efforts.
From BBC ● May 25, 2026
U.S. and allied military planners, meanwhile, have spent months conferring on new blueprints for their combined force structures in Europe, under which the U.S. would reduce its nonnuclear deployments and Europeans would gradually fill gaps.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026
Take a look at the blueprints of former Laker coach Phil Jackson’s three three-peats, especially the one in L.A., and tell me, do you see it too?
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 23, 2026
Chandresh moves around the desk to face him, stepping over blueprints, stumbling though his voice remains steady.
From "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern
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
There are hand-carved stages, fitment stages, 3D scanning to build plastic molds for fitment, blueprinting to build complete 3D high-compression steel molds, and then prototypes are made and tested with our team riders.
From Time Magazine Archive
Boss Engineer Luke Hobbs was also blueprinting the designs for a different type.
From Time Magazine Archive
Said he of the blueprinting: "Somehow we did in three weeks what nobody can do in less than four months."
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.
