sketch
- a simply or hastily executed drawing or painting, especially a preliminary one, giving the essential features without the details.
- a rough design, plan, or draft, as of a book.
- a brief or hasty outline of facts, occurrences, etc.: a sketch of his life.
- a short, usually descriptive, essay, history, or story.
- a short play or slight dramatic performance, as one forming part of a vaudeville program.
- to make a sketch of.
- to set forth in a brief or general account: He sketched his own part in the affair.
- Metallurgy. (in a steel mill or the like) to mark (a piece) for cutting.
- to make a sketch or sketches.
Origin of sketch
Synonyms
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Related Words
blueprintpictureaccountcopylikenessdescriptionchartvignettesummarydepictionversionillustrationportrayalpiecepaintingcartoondelineateportraydepictpaintExamples from the Web for sketch
Contemporary Examples
Then they would go to a hotel afterwards and combine the parts they had remembered in one sketch.
As for the artist, the great Turner canvases, his watercolors and his sketch books are never allowed to speak.
The premise of the sketch was that sex was too spontaneous to be regulated, and the quiz show played that idea to the hilt.
Even though it was just a line in a sketch, were you like, “I am saying a line in a sketch on SNL?”
How Aidy Bryant Stealthily Became Your Favorite ‘Saturday Night Live’ StarKevin Fallon
October 31, 2014
So I wrote that sketch with Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider.
How Aidy Bryant Stealthily Became Your Favorite ‘Saturday Night Live’ StarKevin Fallon
October 31, 2014
Historical Examples
We must now close our sketch of those diversified and pleasant volumes.
You must have lost that sketch after you reached San Francisco.
Her Father's DaughterGene Stratton-Porter
I arose from my chair and examined the sketch of the starving mountaineer.
The UnderdogF. Hopkinson Smith
"I wanted to have a talk to you about that sketch," he said to John.
The Foolish LoversSt. John G. Ervine
Mr. Cream took the MS. of John's sketch from his pocket and spread it on the table.
The Foolish LoversSt. John G. Ervine
sketch
- a rapid drawing or painting, often a study for subsequent elaboration
- a brief usually descriptive and informal essay or other literary composition
- a short play, often comic, forming part of a revue
- a short evocative piece of instrumental music, esp for piano
- any brief outline
- to make a rough drawing (of)
- (tr often foll by out) to make a brief description of
Word Origin
Word Origin and History for sketch
n.
"rough drawing intended to serve as the basis for a finished picture," 1660s, from Dutch schets or Low German skizze, both apparently 17c. artists' borrowings from Italian schizzo "sketch, drawing," which is commonly said to be from Latin *schedius (OED compares schedia "raft," schedium "an extemporaneous poem"), from or related to Greek skhedios "temporary, extemporaneous, done or made off-hand," related to skhema "form, shape, appearance" (see scheme (n.)). But according to Barnhart Italian schizzo is a special use of schizzo "a splash, squirt," from schizzare "to splash or squirt," of uncertain origin.
Extended sense of "brief account" is from 1660s; meaning "short play or performance, usually comic" is from 1789. Sketch-book recorded from 1820. German Skizze, French esquisse, Spanish esquicio are likewise from Italian schizzo.
v.
1690s, "present the essential facts of," from sketch (n.). Meaning "draw, portray in outline and partial shading" is from 1725. Related: Sketched; sketcher; sketching.