mural
Americannoun
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a large picture painted or affixed directly on a wall or ceiling.
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a greatly enlarged photograph attached directly to a wall.
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a wallpaper pattern representing a landscape or the like, often with very widely spaced repeats so as to produce the effect of a mural painting on a wall of average size; a trompe l'oeil.
adjective
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of, relating to, or resembling a wall.
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executed on or affixed to a wall.
mural inscriptions.
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pertaining to any of several astronomical instruments that were affixed to a wall aligned on the plane of a meridian, and were formerly used to measure the altitude of celestial bodies.
a mural quadrant; a mural circle.
noun
adjective
Discover More
The Mexican artist Diego Rivera was noted for his production of murals.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of mural
1400–50; late Middle English < Latin mūrālis, equivalent to mūr ( us ) wall + -ālis -al 1
Explanation
A mural is a large-scale painting usually done on a wall. Diego Rivera, the Mexican muralist, is famous for the plaster murals he painted on the walls at Rockefeller Center in the 1930s. Famous murals include the wall designs in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican in Rome, and the Coit Tower murals in San Francisco. Many murals were created during the Renaissance, and again during the New Deal. They are also common features of urban settings — painted on the outsides of buildings and on playground walls.
Vocabulary lists containing mural
Awkward
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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.
A mural depicting life in a Welsh village has left some people scratching their heads, as it features the Eastenders legend Dot Cotton.
From BBC • Jun. 30, 2026
The idea behind the mural was to brighten up the village of around 1,500 people, so artist Steve Jenkins was enlisted.
From BBC • Jun. 30, 2026
The mural was paid for following a number of fundraisers, and Rhian said "the older generation" of local people seemed to know a bit more about Brown's links to the area.
From BBC • Jun. 30, 2026
Practically before the paint had dried, the mural was a sensation.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 27, 2026
This afternoon when she arrived at the Junklot to work on her own mural, it took Sierra a few seconds to find the old man’s face peering out from the brick.
From "Shadowshaper" by Daniel José Older
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.
