mural
[myoo r-uh l]
- a large picture painted or affixed directly on a wall or ceiling.
- a greatly enlarged photograph attached directly to a wall.
- 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.
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- of, relating to, or resembling a wall.
- executed on or affixed to a wall: mural inscriptions.
- 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.
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Origin of mural
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for mural
Contemporary Examples
Mastrion immediately decided to change her concept to a mural of the band.
By April 17, Warhol had written a letter to the Department of Public Works authorizing that the mural be painted over.
The teachers encouraged him, gave him a school wall for a mural.
Like a masterpiece—or a mural across the side of a subway car—the art of graffiti seemed to spring up overnight in New York City.
Now, he was flanked by a mural of pastel-colored ice-cream cones.
Historical Examples
Congress had voted money for mural paintings for the rotunda of the Capitol.
The Age of InventionHolland Thompson
They, too, like the Egyptians, embellished their tombs with mural paintings.
ArchitectureThomas Roger Smith
A mural tablet might be set in the front of the central building, at a small expense.
Tea LeavesVarious
He meant that the faces of many of the figures in the mural were still blank.
2 B R 0 2 BKurt Vonnegut
The coins of Zamasp have the usual inflated ball and mural crown, but with a crescent in place of the front limb of the crown.
mural
- a large painting or picture on a wall
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- of or relating to a wall
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Word Origin
C15: from Latin mūrālis, from mūrus wall
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for mural
n.
painting on a wall, 1921, short for mural painting (1850), from mural (adj.) "pertaining to walls" (mid-15c.), from Latin muralis "of a wall," from murus "wall" (Old Latin moiros, moerus), from PIE *mei- "to fix; to build fences or fortifications" (cf. Old English mære "boundary, border, landmark;" Old Norse -mæri "boundary, border-land;" Latin munire "to fortify, protect").
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
mural
(myur′əl)- Of or relating to the wall of any cavity.
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The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
mural
A painting, usually large, made directly on a wall.
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Note
The Mexican artist Diego Rivera was noted for his production of murals.
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.