describe

verb

de·scribe | \ di-ˈskrīb

described; describing

Definition of describe

1 : to represent or give an account of in words describe a picture The police asked her to describe the thief. There were so many things he wanted to describe …— James Joyce

2 : to represent by a figure, model, or picture : delineate described in her paintings what she saw from her window

3 obsolete : distribute

4 : to trace or traverse the outline of describe a circle

5 archaic : observe, perceive

Other Words from describe Synonyms More Example Sentences Learn More about describe

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Examples of describe in a Sentence

The witness wasn't able to describe the robber. He described the house in perfect detail. The article describes how the experiment was done. She described watching dolphins play beside the ship. Please describe what happened next. Can you describe the lost dog to me? She used a stick to describe a circle on the ground.

Recent Examples on the Web

These are often described on a company’s careers site as affinity networks or employee-resource groups. — Sue Shellenbarger, WSJ, "Companies Hire on Potential—If Only They Knew What That Meant," 12 Mar. 2019 Basically, the feelings around Rebecca can best be described by @Sandifer1946's epically quirky tweet: In all seriousness, the fans do raise a valid point. — Kayla Keegan, Good Housekeeping, "'This Is Us' Fans Are Enraged With Rebecca After Last Night’s New Episode," 13 Feb. 2019 Garzón, a small village near the southeastern coast of Uruguay, is often described as a one-horse town. — Paola Singer, ELLE Decor, "In an Expat Enclave of Rural Uruguay, a Couple Finds Tranquility at Home," 1 Dec. 2018 But the methods the company took were shocking, even to Gouthro, who in the article describes Tesla as significantly less professional than Facebook. — David Grossman, Popular Mechanics, "New Report Claims Tesla Engaged in Lies, Threats to Stop Leaks," 13 Mar. 2019 The photos were identified as such but wrongly described online as illustrating imprisonment under Trump. — Jewel Wicker, Teen Vogue, "Report Claims Trump Administration Is Still Separating Families at the Border," 28 Nov. 2018 The annual charge, which Fidelity calls an infrastructure fee, is aimed at companies selling shares on the asset manager’s fund platform, and was described in a 2017 internal Fidelity document reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. — Gretchen Morgenson, WSJ, "Government Probes Fidelity Over Obscure Mutual-Fund Fees," 27 Feb. 2019 The rest of the process relies on the same method described above to create a secure random number. — Chris Lee, Ars Technica, "Conservation of energy used to parallelize quantum key distribution," 17 Dec. 2018 When Microsoft began releasing the October 2018 Update, the company received 23 pieces of feedback and 20 pieces of support data describing the bug. — Mark Hachman, PCWorld, "Microsoft re-releases the Windows 10 October 2018 Update, admitting its testing needs to improve," 13 Nov. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'describe.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.