Mona Lisa

American  

[moh-nuh lee-suh, lee-zuh] / ˈmoʊ nə ˈli sə, ˈli zə /

noun

1. Italian La Gioconda.  a portrait (1503?–05?) by Leonardo da Vinci.

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Mona Lisa British  

/ ˈməʊnə ˈliːzə /

noun

1. Also called: La Gioconda.  a portrait of a young woman painted by Leonardo da Vinci, admired for her enigmatic smile

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Mona Lisa Cultural  

1. A painting by Leonardo da Vinci of a woman with a mysterious smile. It is one of the most readily recognized paintings in the world.

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Example Sentences

The Louvre, a former royal palace and home to some of the world's most iconic pieces of art, including Leonardo Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa", receives around nine million visitors a year.

From Barron's • Feb. 25, 2026

By carefully designing the halftone patterns, they encoded the Mona Lisa image into flat films that later transformed into three-dimensional forms.

From Science Daily • Feb. 6, 2026

RZA and Wu-affiliate Cilvaringz wanted to up the value of art by treating a rap album like the Mona Lisa.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 25, 2026

Macron also said the Mona Lisa would be moved to a new space to deal with overcrowding.

From BBC • Nov. 27, 2025

From the United States: “The entire world sat back aghast. Nothing like the theft of the Mona Lisa had ever been perpetrated before in the world’s history.”

From "The Mona Lisa Vanishes" by Nicholas Day