The Collaborative International Dictionary
Portray \Por*tray"\, v. t. [Written also pourtray.] [imp. & p. p. portrayed; p. pr. & vb. n. Portraying.] [OE. pourtraien, OF. portraire, pourtraire, F. portraire, fr. L. protrahere, protractum, to draw or drag forth; pro forward, forth + trahere to draw. See Trace, v. t., and cf. Protract.]
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To paint or draw the likeness of; as, to portray a king on horseback.
Take a tile, and lay it before thee, and portray upon it the city, even Jerusalem.
--Ezek. iv. 1. Hence, figuratively, to describe in words.
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To adorn with pictures. [R.]
Spear and helmets thronged, and shields Various with boastful arguments potrayed.
--Milton.
Wiktionary
vb. (en-past of: portray)
WordNet
Usage examples of "portrayed".
He portrayed the measure as an act of bad faith on the part of America, implying it could have serious consequences to the alliance, and he called on Adams to request Congress to “retrace its steps and do justice to the subjects of the King.
Warming to the subject of his memorial, he portrayed it as the great catalyst for turning the entire point of view of the Dutch and thus affecting all Europe.
In Brown's portrait, he appeared composed, leaner than Copley had portrayed him, and reflective.
Writing to explain his dismissal to a nephew, McHenry portrayed Adams as “actually insane.
There was no frenzied rush to name “midnight judges,” as portrayed by Jefferson and the Republican press.
The small, everyday pleasures, the calm, the reassuring sameness of life in and about Quincy had proven as beneficial as the pastoral ideal portrayed by the poets he loved and that he himself had so long pictured as his salvation.
He portrayed the measure as an act of bad faith on the part of America, implying it could have serious consequences to the alliance, and he called on Adams to request Congress to "retrace its steps and do justice to the subjects of the King.
Jefferson portrayed himself as living plainly, "farmerlike," as though he had little more on his mind than crops and weather.
Writing to explain his dismissal to a nephew, McHenry portrayed Adams as "actually insane.
Surely the world of 2030 could not possibly now turn out as it had been portrayed in the billions of brief glimpses people had already had of it.
America was capitalizing on new technologies and new inventions portrayed in its citizens’ visions.
Third, people wanted new visions that confirmed or denied the events portrayed in their first visions, letting those with disturbing insights see if they were indeed now on track to avoiding those futures.
Some had thought that because the present had turned out to be different from what the first set of visions portrayed, people might decide that new visions would be irrelevant.
When I heard that you were going to be replicating the experiment again at the exact time the original visions had portrayed, it all fell into place.
Throughout his wildly successful mayoralty, Giuliani was regularly protested as “Adolf Giuliani” and portrayed with a Hitler mustache.