silhouette
/ˌsɪluˈɛt/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.31 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
3
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
An artistic depiction, often of a person's profile, in the form of an outline without any other visual details, similar to a shadow, made by cutting a piece of black paper, filling in an outline with a solid colour (usually black), etc.
noun
A dark outline of someone or something seen against a brighter background.
noun
A brief written description of someone or something; an outline, a sketch.
verb
Often followed by against or upon: to depict (oneself or someone, or something) as a silhouette (noun sense 1 or noun sense 2.1); to project (oneself or someone, or something) upon a background, so as to be like a silhouette.
Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "She had a feeble pencil drawing of the vicarage in Dorsetshire, and silhouettes of her father and mother, which were hung up in the lodgings wherever she went."
- "[A] portion of the John Boyd Thatcher^([sic]) collection of commissions, documents, autograph letters and portraits; a case containing silhouets of famous Colonial personages, a silhouet ring, some smoked silhouets, […]"
- "I could see a silhouette of a figure looking out from the window, but I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman."
- "All we could see were ghostly-looking silhouettes of ships gliding here and there through the clouds; and I am sure the coachman's remark was quite correct, that it was a pity the day was so misty."
- "Entering the gate and passing the shrubs, the silhouette of a house rose to view; black, low, and rather long: but the guiding light shone nowhere. All was obscurity."
- "Another second and I saw the black silhouette of the old Zulu raise its arm in mute salute, and Nyleptha was before us."
Etymology
The noun is a unadapted borrowing from French silhouette, from the surname of Étienne de Silhouette (1709–1767), France’s Controller-General of Finances. It has been suggested that the word refers to one or more of the following: * De Silhouette’s penny-pinching policies which led to the French term à la Silhouette, applied to things perceived as austere or cheap, akin to an outline filled only with black. * The fact that de Silhouette only held the office of Controller-General of Finances for about eight months from 4 March to 21 November 1759. * De Silhouette’s outline portraits which he made to decorate his château at Bry-sur-Marne, Val-de-Marne. De Silhouette’s surname is a gallicized form of Basque Ziloeta or Zilhoeta (modern Basque Zulueta), from the local plural stem (see -ak) of zulo (“hole, pit; den, hiding place”), from Proto-Basque *zuLo (“hole”). The verb is derived from the noun.
Word Breakdown
- Root: Ziloeta, *zuLo
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˌsɪluˈɛt/
- British English: /ˌsɪlʊˈɛt/