different between depict vs feature

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin d?pictus, from d?pingere, from d?ping?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d??p?kt/
• Rhymes: -?kt

Verb

depict (third-person singular simple present depicts, present participle depicting, simple past and past participle depicted)

1. To render a representation of something, using words, sounds, images, or other means. [from early 15th c.]

   Synonyms: portray, express, exhibit, register, show, describe, visualise, draw, render, depicture

   • 1639, Thomas Fuller, The Historie of the Holy Warre, Cambridge, Book 4, Chapter 12, p. 189,^[1]

     And by [these Embassadours] he sent to their master a Tent, wherein the history of the Bible was as richly as curiously depicted in needle-work;

   • 1770, Thomas Chatterton, The Auction, a Poem: A Familiar Epistle to a Friend, London: George Kearsly, p. ,^[2]

     The Spring, when all its beauties rise,

     I see depicted in your eyes

   • 1984, Lawrence Starr, "Toward a Reevaluation of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess," American Music, vol. 2, no. 2, p. 27,

     The well-known words depict a woman seeking sanctuary in a love relationship form a brutal, rapacious man.

   • 1987, Niall O'Loughlin, "Music Reviews: 20th-century guitar," The Musical Times, vol. 128, no. 1734, p. 443,

     Here the music depicts the delicate pattern of ice on windows.

   • 1994, E. Pennisi, "Breathe (xenon) deeply to see lungs clearly," Science News, vol. 146, no. 5, p. 70 (caption),

     False-color computer images depict lungs removed from a mouse.

Usage notes

The subjects of the verb include words, music and images.

Related terms

• depiction
• depictive

Translations

Adjective

depict (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) Depicted.
   • Early 1400s, John Lydgate, “The Concords of Company” in James Orchard Halliwell (ed.), A Selection from the Minor Poems of Dan John Lydgate, London: The Percy Society, 1840, p. 177,^[3]

     I fond a lyknesse depict upon a wal,

     Armed in vertues, as I walk up and doun,

     The hed of thre ful solempne and roial,

     Intellectus, memorye, and resoun;

English

Etymology

From Middle English feture, from Anglo-Norman feture, from Old French faiture, from Latin fact?ra. Doublet of facture.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?fi?t??/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?fit??/
• Rhymes: -i?t??(?)

Noun

feature (plural features)

1. (obsolete) One's structure or make-up: form, shape, bodily proportions.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV.ii:

     all the powres of nature, / Which she by art could vse vnto her will, / And to her seruice bind each liuing creature; / Through secret vnderstanding of their feature.

2. An important or main item.
3. (media) A long, prominent article or item in the media, or the department that creates them; frequently used technically to distinguish content from news.
   1. (film) Ellipsis of feature film
4. Any of the physical constituents of the face (eyes, nose, etc.).
5. (computing) A beneficial capability of a piece of software.
6. The cast or structure of anything, or of any part of a thing, as of a landscape, a picture, a treaty, or an essay; any marked peculiarity or characteristic.
7. (archaeology) Something discerned from physical evidence that helps define, identify, characterize, and interpret an archeological site.

   • A feature of many Central Texas prehistoric archeological sites is a low spreading pile of stones called a rock midden. Other features at these sites may include small hearths.

8. (engineering) Characteristic forms or shapes of parts. For example, a hole, boss, slot, cut, chamfer, or fillet.
9. (statistics, machine learning) An individual measurable property or characteristic of a phenomenon being observed.
10. (music) The act of being featured in a piece of music.
11. (linguistics) The elements into which linguistic units can be broken down.

    Hyponyms: gender, number, person, tense

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:characteristic

Derived terms

• featural
• feature article

Translations

Further reading

• feature in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Verb

feature (third-person singular simple present features, present participle featuring, simple past and past participle featured)

1. (transitive) To ascribe the greatest importance to something within a certain context.
2. (transitive) To star, to contain.
3. (intransitive) To appear, to make an appearance.
4. (transitive, dated) To have features resembling.
   • Sunday. Reading for the Young (page 219)

     More than his talents, Roger grudged him his looks, the brown eyes, golden hair, and oval face, which made people say how Johnny Weir featured his mother.

Translations

Middle English

Noun

feature

1. Alternative form of feture