delineate
verb · adjective
Simple meaning
To describe or depict with words or gestures.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
dihlineeaytSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
dɪˈlɪnieɪt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
To describe or depict with words or gestures.
To sketch out, draw or trace an outline.
To outline or mark out.
Trace the shape of
To depict, represent with pictures.
adjective
as a participial adjective
Sketched out, portrayed, described, defined.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Typical Use
- Primarily written
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To describe or depict with words or gestures.
Used this way, delineate is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Represented accurately or precisely.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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What Does It Mean Here?
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.