The Collaborative International Dictionary
Describe \De*scribe"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Described; p. pr. & vb. n. Describing.] [L. describere, descriptum; de- + scribere to write: cf. OE. descriven, OF. descrivre, F. d['e]crire. See Scribe, and cf. Descry.]
To represent by drawing; to draw a plan of; to delineate; to trace or mark out; as, to describe a circle by the compasses; a torch waved about the head in such a way as to describe a circle.
To represent by words written or spoken; to give an account of; to make known to others by words or signs; as, the geographer describes countries and cities.
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To distribute into parts, groups, or classes; to mark off; to class. [Obs.]
Passed through the land, and described it by cities into seven parts in a book.
--Josh. xviii. 9.Syn: To set forth; represent; delineate; relate; recount; narrate; express; explain; depict; portray; chracterize.
Wiktionary
vb. (present participle of describe English)
Usage examples of "describing".
Lieutaud is quoted as describing a postmortem examination of an adult who had died of hydropsy, in whom the liver and spleen were entirely missing.
Dantra is accredited with describing asphyxiation, accompanied by great agony, in a man who, while swimming, had partially swallowed a live fish.
In his voyages and travels, in describing the death of the King of Demaa at the hands of his page, Mendez Pinto says that instead of being reserved for torture, as were his successors Ravaillac, and Gerard, the slayer of William the Silent, the assassin was impaled alive with a long stake which was thrust in at his fundament and came out at the nape of his neck.
Schleiser is accredited with describing an instance in which a healthy man was engaged in a fray in the dark, and, suddenly crying out, fell into convulsions and died in five minutes.
Turning to the older writers, we find Burton describing a patient from whom he took 122 ounces of blood in four days.
The name of syphilis was said to have been first given to it by a physician of Verona, in a poem describing the disease.
Whilst describing such figures, the apex often travels in a zigzag line, or makes small subordinate loops or triangles.
Besides describing the several modified forms of circumnutation, some other subjects will be discussed.
From these several reasons and from our having partially traced the development of the pulvinus from an early age, the case seems worth describing in some detail.
On the next day it circumnutated in a greater degree, describing four irregular ellipses, and by 3 P.
Although the main petiole is continually and rapidly describing small ellipses during the day, yet after the great nocturnal rising movement has commenced, if dots are made every 2 or 3 minutes, as was done for an hour between 9.
In several other cases, for instance, when a leaf after describing during the day one or more fairly regular ellipses, zigzags much in the evening, it appears as if energy was being expended, so that the great evening rise or fall might coincide with the period of the day proper for this movement.
The most complex of all the movements performed by sleeping plants, is that when leaves or leaflets, after describing in the daytime several vertically directed ellipses, rotate greatly on their axes in the evening, by which twisting movement they occupy a wholly different position at night to what they do during the day.
But if so, it must be assumed that a bright lateral light completely stops circumnutation, for a plant thus exposed moves in a straight line towards it, without describing any ellipses or circles.
It returned also in a zigzag line, and then circumnutated regularly, describing three large ellipses during the remainder of the day.