Other forms: sketches, sketched, sketching
A sketch is a drawing done fast and loose — a few lines to catch a face or a roofline before the moment goes. A pencil sketch on a napkin, a sketch of the room made while the kettle boils.
Everything else the word does follows from that, because a sketch is anything roughed out rather than finished. You sketch a plan on the back of an envelope, you sketch out an argument in three sentences, and a biographical sketch is a short account rather than a whole life. On television and radio a sketch is a short comic scene, and a sketch show is a run of them with no story tying them together. The adjective has drifted furthest: sketchy means thin and incomplete, as in the details are sketchy, and in casual speech it also means dodgy and not to be trusted.
1nounquickA quick rough drawing.
“He made a sketch of the harbour in ten minutes.”
2nounsketchA short comic scene in a show.
“The best sketch of the night lasted two minutes.”
3nounsummaryA short rough account or outline of something.
“Give me a sketch of what happened and we can fill in the details later.”
4verbdrawTo draw something quickly and roughly.
“She sketched the cat while it slept.”
5verbdescribeTo describe something in rough outline.
“He sketched out the plan on the back of a receipt.”
Sketch reached English from Dutch schets or German Skizze, which had it from Italian schizzo, from Latin schedium, from Ancient Greek skhedios — made suddenly, off-hand. That Greek word came from skhedon, near or close at hand, and behind that ekho, to hold. A sketch is something made with whatever is to hand, on the spot, which is what it still is; scheme is a cousin.
Proto-Indo-European
*seǵʰ-
Ancient Greek
σχέδιος — made suddenly, off-hand
Latin
schedium
Italian
schizzo
German
Skizze
Dutch
schets
English, today
sketch
Built from
From Dutch schets or German Skizze, from Italian schizzo, from Latin schedium, from Ancient Greek σχέδιος (“made suddenly, off-hand”), from σχεδόν (“near, nearby”), from ἔχω (“to hold”). Compare scheme.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA