sketch

[ skech ]

/ skɛtʃ /

Save This Word!

See synonyms for: sketch / sketched / sketches on Thesaurus.com

noun

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.

verb (used with object)

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.

verb (used without object)

to make a sketch or sketches.

SYNONYMS FOR sketch

2 outline.

5 skit, act, routine.

6 draw, outline, design, rough out, delineate, represent.

See synonyms for sketch on Thesaurus.com

QUIZZES

QUIZ YOURSELF ON “ITS” VS. “IT’S”!

Apostrophes can be tricky; prove you know the difference between it’s and its in this crafty quiz!

Question 1 of 12

On the farm, the feed for chicks is significantly different from the roosters’; ______ not even comparable.

it's

its

TAKE THE QUIZ TO FIND OUT

Origin of sketch

1660–70; <Dutch schets (noun) ≪ Italian schizzo<Latin schedium extemporaneous poem, noun use of neuter of schedius extempore <Greek schédios

synonym study for sketch

6. See depict.

OTHER WORDS FROM sketch

sketcher, nounsketch·ing·ly, adverbsketchlike, adjectivere·sketch, verb (used with object)

un·sketched, adjectivewell-sketched, adjective

Words nearby sketch

skeptical, skepticism, skerrick, skerry, sket, sketch, sketchable, sketchbook, sketch map, sketchpad, sketchy

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2021

Example sentences from the Web for sketch

This will help you make sure you always get the best version of your sketches whether you want to edit them, turn them into digital artwork, or simply post them.
Must-have art supplies to let your inner creative shine|Sandra Gutierrez G.|February 11, 2021|Popular Science
Then they would go to a hotel afterwards and combine the parts they had remembered in one sketch.
The Big Business of Fashion Counterfeits|Lizzie Crocker|December 24, 2014|DAILY BEAST
As for the artist, the great Turner canvases, his watercolors and his sketch books are never allowed to speak.
Why Can’t Movies Capture Genius?|Clive Irving|December 14, 2014|DAILY BEAST
The premise of the sketch was that sex was too spontaneous to be regulated, and the quiz show played that idea to the hilt.
How Antioch College Got Rape Right 20 Years Ago|Nicolaus Mills|December 10, 2014|DAILY BEAST

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’ Star|Kevin Fallon|October 31, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Look to “Booty Rap,” easily the best sketch on this season thus far, for proof of that.
How Aidy Bryant Stealthily Became Your Favorite ‘Saturday Night Live’ Star|Kevin Fallon|October 31, 2014|DAILY BEAST
It is impossible to believe that thus far it is anything but a sketch and intimation of what it will presently be.
The Salvaging Of Civilisation|H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
The magazines sketch us a lively article, the newspapers vignette us, step by step, a royal tour.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV.|Various
I have an old sketch of a back view of three of them taken side by side; you see nothing but billows of fine silky hair.
Ancestors|Gertrude Atherton
They would have made a good study for an artist, had an artist been at hand to sketch them and their surroundings.
The World Before Them|Susanna Moodie
Who is not carried back to good old times as he reads this sketch of Connecticut goin' to meetin' fifty years ago?
The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun;|Various

British Dictionary definitions for sketch

sketch

/ (skɛtʃ) /

noun

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

verb

to make a rough drawing (of)

(tr often foll by out) to make a brief description of

Derived forms of sketch

sketchable, adjectivesketcher, noun

Word Origin for sketch

C17: from Dutch schets, via Italian from Latin schedius hastily made, from Greek skhedios unprepared

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

MEANINGS

WORD GAMES

LEARN

WRITING

WORD OF THE DAY

sketch