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What is "portray"

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portray
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
portray
verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
portray a character (=show one in a play, book, film etc)
▪ The main characters are brilliantly portrayed.
portray sb as a victim (=to write or talk about someone as though they are not responsible for their bad situation)
▪ She was portrayed as the victim of a loveless marriage.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
as
▪ First, deficit cultures are portrayed as irrational, as based on ignorance.
▪ Fathers have so rarely done the nurturing that their attempts are either portrayed as heroic or summarily dismissed.
▪ The two companies were portrayed as representing totally contrasting management philosophies.
▪ The sponsoring group must insistently be portrayed as friendly, hopeful, welcoming, and benign.
▪ Newton is portrayed as influencing eighteenth-century perspective in an unspecified manner, although his effect on colour theory is seen as considerable.
▪ The black nationalists were portrayed as well-meaning, earnest ideologues lacking the resources to defeat the establishment.
▪ Synod members were under pressure to crack down on gay clergy, who were portrayed as leading lives of wild abandon!
▪ The various non-human beings who hunt humans are not portrayed as violent or aggressive either.
often
▪ The life of Brian is often portrayed as a complex one.
▪ In the past, they were often portrayed as at grips with civilization in a sort of duel of love.
▪ Perhaps she really is the long-suffering, devoted wife she's often portrayed to be.
▪ Blaming the victim However, the moral status of the victim is often portrayed as ambivalent in murder trials.
▪ Yet she can not find an entirely satisfactory alternative, for the life of the spinster is often portrayed in stark terms.
▪ Investment is often portrayed as a cure-all for the economic ills of rich countries.
▪ Despite the overwhelming scientific consensus supporting the existence of global warming, the media often portray it as a controversial scientific debate.
▪ Integrate yourself Our hobby is often portrayed as a kind of shady sub-culture, outside the mainstream of society.
■ NOUN
actor
▪ The entire cast -- 23 actors portraying inmates portraying fictional characters based on real ones -- inhabit the stage simultaneously.
▪ Yet it is difficult to get past the turkey legs on the actor portraying Alexander.
▪ The actors include Mark Hamill portraying Col.
▪ A great actor portraying a great actor.
attempt
▪ By 1831 the attempt to portray antislavery in parliament as an exercise in abstract moralism was absent.
▪ Fathers have so rarely done the nurturing that their attempts are either portrayed as heroic or summarily dismissed.
character
▪ He first described this in Noctambules which showed how the characters portrayed were manipulated by the Hypnotist.
▪ Enough for them to relate to the characters being portrayed.
▪ You will not only be sure of the text, but, more than this, of the character you are portraying.
▪ What can you say about a show where the names of the three actresses sound more manufactured than the characters they portray?
▪ Examples taken from both choreographers' works describe the particular feelings, moods and emotions of the characters their dancers are portraying.
▪ Some of the characters they met are portrayed by Minton in the book.
▪ Situations and characters to be portrayed can be set out for the learner on a worksheet.
effort
▪ Harmony and collective company effort is portrayed as a reciprocal bargain.
▪ The effort to portray Stern as a prince is relentless.
image
▪ She has been highly successful and portrays a very positive image, which affects the number of female pupils we attract.
▪ The artist portrayed images of daily life in his native town of Ocotlan with vivid colors, surrealism and magical realism.
▪ Invariably old age is portrayed by the image of an old lady living in obvious poverty and social neglect.
▪ Some of the media were interested only in portraying a violent image of Blackbird Leys.
life
▪ Working models, videos, pictorial and three dimensional displays portray every aspect of life on the canals.
▪ The artist portrayed images of daily life in his native town of Ocotlan with vivid colors, surrealism and magical realism.
▪ Synod members were under pressure to crack down on gay clergy, who were portrayed as leading lives of wild abandon!
▪ Lugar, 63, has tried to portray his life in politics as merely accidental.
▪ These accounts portray life behind bars as a cruel twist on the Hobbesian description of life: nasty, brutish and long.
▪ They not only portrayed middle-class life and its problems but attacked the corruption and depravity of the nobility.
man
▪ Thomas portrays Bobby as a man of paradoxes.
▪ Books portraying black men in a positive light are simply not part of the growth industry.
media
▪ Such negative stereotypes are often reinforced by pervasive media images which portray the young as capable and glamorous.
▪ Despite the overwhelming scientific consensus supporting the existence of global warming, the media often portray it as a controversial scientific debate.
woman
▪ Berkoff portrays a lonely middle-aged woman who has had more than her fair share of gropes in corners and one-night stands.
▪ In wild expressionist style, the work portrays a slain woman lying at the feet of a grinning king.
▪ Storni does not portray women in general as she does Margara.
▪ Its advertisement portrayed two black women, naked, in chains, and a white man standing over them with a whip.
■ VERB
seek
▪ If the Tories are seeking to portray Mr Brown as a spendthrift, they are almost certain to fail.
try
▪ We're trying to portray normal relationships.
▪ Lugar, 63, has tried to portray his life in politics as merely accidental.
▪ Labour will try this week to portray itself as the party of hope, with policies on education, training and health.
▪ That was the ghost figure I was trying to portray.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Fink is not the only writer portrayed in the film.
▪ In the movie, Burg portrays a real-life Holocaust survivor.
▪ Their music portrays a lifestyle that no longer exists.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ All along, the Owens River had been portrayed as a matter of life or death to the city of Los Angeles.
▪ Instead, she portrayed herself as a philanthropist, eager to help old friends down on their luck.
▪ Leonard Baskin has been chosen to portray F.D.R.'s first inauguration and, in the final room, his funeral cortège.
▪ The recommendation was a surprise because census officials previously have portrayed adjustment as a solution to chronic undercounts.
▪ This again portrays Cassius as a hero, and Caesar as a feeble old man in comparison.
▪ This is the only example portraying a Roman Emperor which has survived intact from such an early age.
▪ Two portray large dramatic faces that do not look particularly human.
▪ We are all given T-shirts that portray Erap as a crocodile, gobbling money.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Portray

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.]

  1. 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.

  2. Hence, figuratively, to describe in words.

  3. To adorn with pictures. [R.]

    Spear and helmets thronged, and shields Various with boastful arguments potrayed.
    --Milton.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
portray

mid-13c., "to draw, paint" (something), from Anglo-French purtraire, Old French portraire "to draw, to paint, portray" (12c.), literally "trace, draw forth," from por- "forth" (from Latin pro-; see pro-) + traire "trace, draw," from Latin trahere "to drag, draw" (see tract (n.1)). Meaning "depict in words, describe" is from late 14c. Related: Portrayed; portraying.

Wiktionary
portray

vb. 1 To paint or draw the likeness of. 2 (context figuratively English) To describe in words; to convey. 3 To play a role; to depict a character, person, situation, or event. 4 To adorn with pictures.

WordNet
portray

  1. v. portray in words; "The book portrays the actor as a selfish person"

  2. make a portrait of; "Goya wanted to portray his mistress, the Duchess of Alba" [syn: depict, limn]

  3. assume or act the character of; "She impersonates Madonna"; "The actor portrays an elderly, lonely man" [syn: impersonate]

  4. represent in a painting, drawing, sculpture, or verbally; "The father is portrayed as a good-looking man in this painting" [syn: present]

Usage examples of "portray".

America, which is usually portrayed as an oppressive, racist, sexist, homophobic nation with few redeeming qualities.

Its lawyer was portrayed as a radical who was unafraid to use litigation to preserve history.

Wolffs actual journey, I took some liberties with the timing of background events, but the Amir Nasrullah, the Nayeb Abdul Samut Khan, and the Khalifa of Merv were all real people and their characters are portrayed accurately in the book.

Everything in Cyador is mirrored in everything else, and some reflections are true, and some of those true reflections are yet false, for they portray true images reflecting onto and concealing deception.

But he portrays, with an admiration not too highly colored, the magnificent patience, the courage to bear misconstruction, the unfailing patriotism, the practical sagacity, the level balance of judgment combined with the wisest toleration, the dignity of mind, and the lofty moral nature which made him the great man of his epoch.

The monologuist Ruth Draper, 18841956, became quite famous in London for stage presentations in which she portrayed a great variety of personalities, ranging from a nagging wife to a peasant girl kneeling in a cathedral.

Europe is due to the perfect integration of Roman capillary habits with the general morphology of the characters he usually portrays.

The leaves of music still lay scattered upon the table, the lute lay neglected upon a corner of the sofa, and her imagination could have almost portrayed the form of Enrico sitting pensively in the place which he had so recently occupied.

Senate floor, portrayed himself as having spent months refusing to believe the White House would ever politicize the war.

Further, a negro delegate from Georgia portrayed the disaster which would overwhelm the political aspirations of his people if the Populist party, which alone had given them full fellowship, should surrender to the Democrats.

With one apparent exception, there are no stories sufficiently detailed to dispose of other explanations and sufficiently accurate to portray correctly modern physics or astronomy to a prescientific or pretechnical people.

I simply wanted to portray in him the type of the Stolypins, the Rossets, and other Russian ex-lions.

Naturally Tocsin had tried to portray Kenson as incompetent, soft on Saturnism, ultraliberal, filthy rich, and other political crimes.

None of the synoptics have any of these sayings, and scarcely seem to portray Jesus as divine at all.

Thaddeus George, had painted a triptych that, when laid side by side, portrayed the entire archipelago, immortalized in oils at a time when everyone had had high hopes for the future.