Describe

Describe - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

DESCRIBE, v.t. [L. To write.]

1. To delineate or mark the form or figure; as, to describe a circle by the compasses.

2. To make or exhibit a figure by motion; as, a star describes a circle or an ellipsis in the heavens.

3. To show or represent to others in words; to communicate the resemblance of a thing, by naming its nature, form or properties. The poet describes the Trojan horse. The historian describes the battle of Pharsalia. The moralist describes the effects of corrupt manners. The geographer describes countries and cities.

4. To represent by signs. A deaf and dumb man may describe a distant object. Our passions may be described by external motions.

5. To draw a plan; to represent by lines and other marks on paper, or other material; as, to describe the surface of the earth by a map or chart.

6. To define laxly.

de-skrib': This verb, now obsolete, in the sense used in Jos 18:4,6,8,9 and Jud 8:14, is a translation of kathabh, usually rendered "to write" or "inscribe." But in the above passages it has the Old English meaning of dividing into parts or into lots, as for example: "Walk through the land, and describe it according to their inheritance" (Jos 18:4); that is, describe in writing the location and size of the several parcels of land thus portioned out. In Jud 8:14 "described" should be translated "wrote down a list of." "Describe" occurs twice in the King James Version of the New Testament (Ro 4:6, 10:5), where lego, and grapho, are both rendered "describeth." the Revised Version (British and American) corrects both, and substitutes "pronounceth" in the first and "writeth" in the second passage.

Description = "list" (1 Esdras 5:39).

W. W. Davies