Illustration

How to spell illustration

12 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce illustration

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does illustration mean?

1. nounA drawing, photograph, or diagram that accompanies and helps explain a text.
2. nounAn example or case used to make a point clearer or to demonstrate something.

Illustration in a sentence

• The children's book featured a detailed illustration on every page.

• The failed merger is a perfect illustration of poor planning.

• She submitted a hand-drawn illustration for the magazine cover.

• By way of illustration, the tutor described a real client dispute.

Where does illustration come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin illustratio, a noun built on the verb illustrare, which meant 'to light up, to illuminate, or to make bright and clear'. That verb combined the prefix in- (here in its assimilated form il-, meaning 'in' or 'upon') with lustrare, 'to brighten or shed light on', a relative of lux, the ordinary Latin word for light. The earliest English use, arriving through Old French in the late 1300s and 1400s, kept this idea of throwing light on something: an illustration was an explanation that made an obscure point clear. Only later, around the 1600s and 1700s, did the sense narrow towards a picture or drawing that accompanies and clarifies a text. The bright origin survives in close relatives such as 'lustre' and 'illustrious', and remembering that buried lustr (light) helps explain the double L, since the il- prefix doubled the L when it attached to the root.

How the word is built

• il- (in, towards; assimilated form of in-)
• lustr (light, from Latin lustrare 'to light up')
• -ation (noun-forming suffix)