Other forms: descriptions
A description is an account in words of what somebody or something is like. A vivid description, fit the description, beyond description.
Police descriptions are famously unreliable, because people remember categories rather than details. In writing, the advice that holds is to describe less and choose better — one exact detail beats five vague ones. Note describe, from the Latin for writing down.
1noundescriptionAn account in words of what something is like.
“The hotel's description on the website said "sea view", but we could only see a car park.”
description is an account.
Latin descriptio comes from describere, to write down — de plus scribere, to write. Script and scribe come from the same writing.
Proto-Indo-European
*(s)kreybʰ-
Latin
dēscrīptiō
Old French
description
Middle English
descripcioun
English, today
description
Built from
From Middle English descripcioun, from Old French description and its etymon, Latin dēscrīptiō, noun of action of dēscrībō (“to describe”). Equivalent to describe + tion.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA