Meaning of pen picture | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A written description, often biographical.
   idiomatic
2. A picture drawn with a pen.
   archaic, idiomatic

Equivalents

Examples

“Mr. [Timothy Shay] Arthur has been, and is, a close observer, and in his pictures of domestic life, his groups include all the necessary characters, while the back ground and filling up take in all the accessories and incidentals, which, skilfully managed, give a pen-picture its vraisemblance.”

“[O]ur purpose […] was to secure a series of Pen Pictures, descriptive,—not of the most important events of the War, for that would be simply metrical history,—but of those events which have relation to the individual, that each and every particular poem might come home to some heart, and there find its abiding place throughg all time; […]”

“An afternoon newspaper published in Worcester, Mass., inflected upon its readers a screed worthy the ablest efforts of a Chicago anarchist. […] It drew a pen picture of the dread disease [cholera] in the act of purging the city of Fall River of such men as would dare to insinuate that the young woman [Lizzie Borden] was guilty.”

“I was most amused by the article on Sir Henry Fowler in the series "Some C.M.Es. I have Known." It was a perfect pen picture of one full of nervous energy.—Major H[ewitt] P[earson] M[ontague] Beames, […] (formerly Chief Mechanical Engineer, L.M.S.R.).”

“In the poem, the poet just gives a pen picture of his father, who according to him, represents all that is best in Aryan culture.”

“If ego development has been disrupted by adverse life events, and especially an absence of nurturing during the formative years[…], we can expect this developmental weakness to be played out in a range of behaviours that cause society concern and often lead to the individual requiring specialist forms of care and support. […] Below is a pen picture of a child lacking ego integrity.”

CEFR level