sketch

• scetch (archaic)

From Dutch schets or German Skizze, from Italian schizzo, from Latin schedium, from Ancient Greek σχέδιος (skhédios, “made suddenly, off-hand”), from σχεδόν (skhedón, “near, nearby”), from ἔχω (ékhō, “I hold”). Compare scheme.

• (UK, US, Canada) IPA^(key): /skɛt͡ʃ/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

  • Audio (New Jersey):

    (file)

• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /sket͡ʃ/
• Rhymes: -ɛtʃ

sketch (third-person singular simple present sketches, present participle sketching, simple past and past participle sketched)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To make a brief, basic drawing.

   I usually sketch with a pen rather than a pencil.

2. (transitive) To describe briefly and with very few details.

   He sketched the accident, sticking to the facts as they had happened.

sketch (plural sketches)

1. A rapidly executed freehand drawing that is not intended as a finished work, often consisting of a multitude of overlapping lines.
   • 1879, R J, chapter II, in The Amateur Poacher, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., , →OCLC:

     Orion hit a rabbit once; but though sore wounded it got to the bury, and, struggling in, the arrow caught the side of the hole and was drawn out. […]. Ikey the blacksmith had forged us a spearhead after a sketch from a picture of a Greek warrior; and a rake-handle served as a shaft.

   • 2012 March, Brian Hayes, “Pixels or Perish”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 106:

     Drawings and pictures are more than mere ornaments in scientific discourse. Blackboard sketches, geological maps, diagrams of molecular structure, astronomical photographs, MRI images, the many varieties of statistical charts and graphs: These pictorial devices are indispensable tools for presenting evidence, for explaining a theory, for telling a story.

2. A rough design, plan, or draft, as a rough draft of a book.
3. A brief description of a person or account of an incident; a general presentation or outline.

   Synonyms: pen picture, pen portrait

   I have to write a character sketch for a novel study.

4. A brief, light, or unfinished dramatic, musical, or literary work or idea; especially a short, often humorous or satirical scene or play, frequently as part of a revue or variety show.

   Synonym: skit

   1. A brief musical composition or theme, especially for the piano.
   2. A brief, light, or informal literary composition, such as an essay or short story.
5. (informal) An amusing person.
6. (slang, Ireland) A lookout; vigilant watch for something.

   to keep sketch

7. (UK) A humorous newspaper article summarizing political events, making heavy use of metaphor, paraphrase and caricature.
   • 1901, Sketch: A Journal of Art and Actuality:

     A very capable journalist, he wrote the Parliamentary sketch for the Pall Mall and the Westminster Gazette for several years.

   • 1978, Robin Callender Smith, Press law, Sweet and Maxwell:

     The Daily Telegraph sketch concentrated on the Bishop's attack and included rebutting remarks from Lord Longford, describing the attack as monumentally unfair because Mr. Cook could not reply.

   • 2012, Andrew Gimson, Boris: The Rise of Boris Johnson, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN:

     Frank had won a reputation while writing the Times sketch as one of the wittiest writers and talkers in England.

8. (category theory) A formal specification of a mathematical structure or a data type described in terms of a graph and diagrams (and cones (and cocones)) on it. It can be implemented by means of “models”, which are functors which are graph homomorphisms from the formal specification to categories such that the diagrams become commutative, the cones become limiting (i.e., products), the cocones become colimiting (i.e., sums).

• → German: Sketch
• → Italian: sketch
• → Portuguese: esquete (Brasilian), sketch (European)
• → Turkish: skeç

sketch (comparative more sketch, superlative most sketch)

1. (informal) Sketchy, shady, questionable.
   • 2019, Justin Blackburn, The Bisexual Christian Suburban Failure Enlightening Bipolar Blues, page 28:

     You call at 9 am on a Saturday, lucky I'm even awake. [...] Then expect me to pick you up at a gas station near a loony bin, that's sketch. I don't even want to ask what you're doing.

• sketch on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Borrowed from English sketch, from Dutch schets.

• IPA^(key): /skɛtʃ/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: sketch

sketch m (plural sketches, diminutive sketchje n)

1. sketch, skit (short comic work)

• cabaretsketch

Borrowed from English sketch.

• IPA^(key): /skɛtʃ/

• Audio (Canada):

  (file)

sketch m (plural sketchs)

1. sketch, skit (short comic work)

• “sketch”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.

Borrowed from English sketch from Dutch schets, from Italian schizzo, from Latin schedium, from Ancient Greek σχέδιος (skhédios, “made suddenly, off-hand”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈskɛt͡ʃ/^[1]
• Rhymes: -ɛtʃ

sketch m (invariable)

1. sketch, skit (short comic work)

Unadapted borrowing from English sketch.

sketch m (plural sketches)

1. Alternative form of esquete

   Synonym: rábula

Unadapted borrowing from English sketch.

• IPA^(key): /ˈsket͡ʃ/ , /esˈket͡ʃ/
• Rhymes: -etʃ

sketch m (plural sketches)

1. skit; sketch (short comic work)

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.

• “sketch”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10

Borrowed from English sketch, from Dutch schets, from Italian schizzo. Doublet of skiss.

sketch c

1. sketch, skit (short comic work)

• skiss

• sketch in Svenska Akademiens ordböcker