picturing

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
picture/ˈpɪktʃə(r)/

▶noun

• 1 a painting, drawing, or photograph.

  ■ a portrait.

  ■ an image on a television screen.

• 2 an impression formed from an account or description: a full picture of the disaster had not yet emerged.

  ■ (often in phr. in (or out of) the picture) informal a state of being fully informed about or involved in something.

• 3 a cinema film.

  ■ (the pictures) the cinema.

• 4 archaic a person or thing resembling another closely.

▶verb

• 1 represent in a picture.

• 2 form a mental image of.

– phrases
be (or look) a picture

• 1 be beautiful.

• 2 look amusingly startled.

the big picture informal the situation as a whole.
a (or the) picture of —— the embodiment of a specified state or emotion: she looked a picture of health.
(as) pretty as a picture very pretty.

– origin ME: from L. pictura, from pict-, pingere ‘to paint’.