Picturesque

How to spell picturesque

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce picturesque

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does picturesque mean?

1. adjectiveVisually charming or striking in an old-fashioned, scenic way, as if worthy of being painted.

Picturesque in a sentence

• The village sat in a picturesque valley dotted with stone cottages.

• They chose a picturesque coastal route for the long drive home.

Where does picturesque come from?

Language of origin: French

This word reached English in the early 1700s from the French pittoresque, which itself was borrowed from the Italian pittoresco, meaning 'in the manner of a painter'. The Italian word was built on pittore, 'a painter', which descends from the Latin pictor, an agent noun from the verb pingere, 'to paint' (the same root that gives us 'picture', 'pigment', and 'depict'). When the term first entered English it kept spellings close to the Italian, but writers soon reshaped the opening to match the familiar word 'picture', producing the modern 'picture-' beginning. The trap in the spelling is the tail: the French ending '-esque' is preserved intact, so it is 'que' rather than the English 'k' sound a writer might expect from the way it is pronounced. Remembering that it literally means 'as a painter would render it' helps fix both the 'picture' opening and the 'esque' close.

How the word is built

• pictur- (from Latin pictura: a painting, from pingere 'to paint')
• -esque (in the style or manner of)