Skip to content
ARCHIEENGLISH
LearnPlayWordsRanking
  • Learn
  • Play
  • Words
  • Ranking
  • Mine
← Vocabulary

portrayal

US/ˌpɔɹˈtɹeɪ.əl/
nounC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #11,615 of 15,258mostly written

Other forms: portrayals

A portrayal is the way somebody is represented in a work. A sympathetic portrayal, the portrayal of women, a fine portrayal.

It is the standard word in criticism about how a group is shown, and arguments about portrayal are arguments about what fiction owes to the real. Of acting it means the whole performance of a character.

Definitions of portrayal

  1. 1nounportrayalThe way somebody is represented in a work.C1

    “The actor's portrayal of the old king won him an award.”

portrayal is a representation.

Where it comes from

  1. Middle French

    portraire

  2. Middle English

    portray

  3. English

    portray

  4. English, today

    portrayal

From portray + -al. portray comes from Middle English portray, from Middle French portraire.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

portrayal in the wild

  • The portrayal of women in American comic books has often been a subject of controversy since the medium's beginning.

    Portrayal of women in American comics

  • Lesbian portrayal in media is generally in relation to feminism, love and sexual relationships, marriage and parenting.

    Media portrayal of lesbians

  • Research suggests that gender portrayal in games can influence players' perceptions of gender roles, and young girls prefer playing as their own gender much more than boys do.

    Gender representation in video games

  • Following Connery's portrayal, David Niven, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig have assumed the role.

    Portrayal of James Bond in film

  • Media portrayals of the Russo-Ukrainian war have differed widely between Ukrainian, Western and Russian media.

    Media portrayal of the Russo-Ukrainian war

1 / 2

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the portraire family

portraitportray

portrayal — used about once every 9,395 pages · #11,615 · point at the bar for the others