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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

description.

A sketch or account of anything in words; a portraiture or representation in language; an enumeration of the essential qualities of a thing or species.

11 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/dɪˈskɹɪpʃən//dəˈskɹɪpʃən/
  1. A sketch or account of anything in words; a portraiture or representation in language; an enumeration of the essential qualities of a thing or species.

    countable · uncountable
    give a verbal description of the events
    a realistic description
  2. The act of describing; a delineation by marks or signs.

    countable · uncountable
  3. A set of characteristics by which someone or something can be recognized.

    countable · uncountable
    The zoo had no lions, tigers, or cats of any description.
  4. A scientific documentation of a taxon for the purpose of introducing it to science.

    countable · uncountable
    The type description of the fungus was written by a botanist.
  5. The act or practice of recording and describing actual language usage in a given speech community, as opposed to prescription, i.e. laying down norms of language usage.

    countable · uncountable
  6. A descriptive linguistic survey.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From Middle English descripcioun, from Old French description and its etymon, Latin dēscrīptiō, noun of action of dēscrībō (“to describe”). Equivalent to describe + -tion.

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description studiodescription workshello, description

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.