Seeing, depicting and interpreting

C2 · 100 entries · Five themes

Seeing, depicting and interpreting

Created by , British English teacher.

Open a theme, then select a word or phrase for its meaning, example and pronunciation.

1. Light and shade (20 entries)
  1. penumbra
  2. a silhouette in sharp relief
  3. a glimmer of reflected light
  4. a glancing reflection
  5. a dusky shade
  6. an iridescent surface
  7. a dappled canopy
  8. a faint afterglow
  9. view something through rose-tinted glasses
  10. a variegated pattern
  11. a diffuse glow
  12. see something for what it is
  13. spotlight
  14. see the wood for the trees
  15. trace a recurring motif
  16. crystallisation
  17. telescopic
  18. uncanny
  19. arcane
  20. squint
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2. Colour and tone (20 entries)
  1. iridescent
  2. mottled
  3. a bloom of colour
  4. a neutral undertone
  5. a subtle gradation
  6. a saturated hue
  7. a mottled appearance
  8. a pearlescent sheen
  9. a translucent film
  10. discordant
  11. a glint of recognition
  12. a chromatic contrast
  13. a translucent wash
  14. a flickering afterimage
  15. see the world in black and white
  16. variegated
  17. an analogous colour scheme
  18. opacity
  19. drabness
  20. glitz
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3. Composition and viewpoint (20 entries)
  1. a retrospective interpretation
  2. a literal-minded reading
  3. a counter-reading
  4. an allegorical reading
  5. interpretive latitude
  6. an interpretive community
  7. a deliberately unstable meaning
  8. unpick an ambiguity
  9. an unspoken assumption
  10. a symptomatic reading
  11. the implied addressee
  12. double voicing
  13. transpose
  14. composition
  15. bracket a question
  16. turn abstraction into action
  17. distinguish agent from action
  18. demystify
  19. ferret out
  20. rift
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4. Texture and visual effects (20 entries)
  1. overt
  2. emerging
  3. undisguised
  4. a second-order interpretation
  5. an image freighted with meaning
  6. a suggestive parallel
  7. an oblique allusion
  8. tease out an implication
  9. a resistant reading
  10. vis-a-vis
  11. dormant
  12. a double bind
  13. envisage
  14. a straw in the wind
  15. register a discordant note
  16. declination
  17. overlay
  18. sheaf
  19. glitzy
  20. conduit
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5. Appearance and illusion (20 entries)
  1. get a distorted picture of
  2. look the part
  3. present a deceptively simple picture
  4. things are not quite what they seem
  5. be a case of smoke and mirrors
  6. there is more to it than meets the eye
  7. take a deceptively familiar form
  8. bear little resemblance to
  9. bear all the hallmarks of
  10. a semblance of order
  11. a veneer of normality
  12. have all the makings of
  13. semblance
  14. look too good to be true
  15. be a far cry from
  16. to the point of caricature
  17. lose sight of the bigger picture
  18. mistake the symptom for the cause
  19. misrecognition
  20. imperceptible
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