Etymologically
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portray

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /pɔːˈtɹeɪ̯/[1]
  • US: /poɹˈtɹeɪ̯/, /pɔɹˈtɹeɪ̯/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English portraien, also purtraien,[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman purtraire and Old French portraire (“to draw, paint, portray”),[4][5][3][2] formed from por- (“forth”), from Latin prō-, and traire (“to trace, draw”),[5][3][6] from trahō (“to drag, draw”).[5][6][7] The Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English take traire from a Romance alteration of the Latin verb.[7][8] The Old French verb is recorded from 1154, and already in the 12th century meant to describe, to shape, to decorate or paint and to imagine.[4] Latin had the parallel compound prōtrahō (“to draw forth, reveal”), which in Medieval Latin also meant to draw or paint;[4][5] Klein, Collins, Dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster derive the word from it,[9][10][11][12] and it is the source of protract.[4][9] The Anglo-Norman verb is recorded from 1155.[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

To draw, paint or engrave a picture: about 1250 as purtrayen in Barnhart,[14][3] in the mid-13th century in Etymonline.[5] The OED's first record, in the Auchinleck manuscript of Guy of Warwick (c. 1330), has the now obsolete sense of decorating a surface with images.[4]

Semantic evolution

In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales the verb is intransitive, to make drawings or pictures,[4] and he used it ten times in all.[2] Trevisa (before 1398) has the modern sense of representing a person or thing in a picture or carving.[4] The word was soon extended from pictures to words: "to depict in words, describe" dates from the late 14th century,[5][4] and "to form a mental image of, imagine", now rare, from before 1375.[4] Johnson (1755) gave "to paint; to describe by picture" first, and quoted Ezekiel's "portray upon it the city Jerusalem".[15] The theatrical sense, to play the part of a character in a play or later a film, is recorded only from 1875.[4] A noun portray, a portrayal or portrait, was used from about 1415 to the late 19th century.[4][7]

Timeline

  • c. 1250 – purtrayen, to draw, paint or engrave.[14][3]
  • c. 1300 – the spelling portrayen.[3]
  • c. 1330 – to decorate a surface with images (now obsolete).[4]
  • before 1375 – to picture to oneself, imagine.[4]
  • before 1387 – to describe in words.[4][5]
  • before 1398 – to represent a person or thing in a picture.[4]
  • c. 1415 – noun, a portrayal or portrait.[4]
  • 1875 – to play a character on the stage.[4]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To make a picture of someone or something in a painting, drawing or sculpture; to depict: The mural portrays the founding of the town.[10][12][4]
  2. To describe in words, or to present in a particular way: Her memoir portrays her father as a gentle man.[10][12][4]
  3. To play the part of a character in a play or film: He portrayed a ship's captain in his first film.[10][12][4]

Noun

  1. (archaic) A portrayal or portrait.[12][4][7]

Word family

  • portrayable
  • portrayer

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  7. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  10. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  12. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  13. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  14. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.