adumbrate

American  

[a-duhm-breyt, ad-uhm-breyt] / æˈdʌm breɪt, ˈæd əmˌbreɪt /

verb (used with object)

adumbrates, present (3rd person singular) adumbrated, past participle, past adumbrating present participle

1. to produce a faint image or resemblance of; to outline or sketch.

2. to foreshadow; prefigure.

3. to darken or conceal partially; overshadow.

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adumbrate British  

/ ædˈʌmbrətɪv, ˈædʌmˌbreɪt /

verb

1. to outline; give a faint indication of

2. to foreshadow

3. to overshadow; obscure

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• adumbration
  noun
• adumbrative
  adjective
• adumbratively
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Participles

• adumbrating
  present
• adumbrated
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• adumbrate
  simple
• adumbrates
  simple
• have adumbrated
  perfect
• has adumbrated
  perfect
• am adumbrating
  progressive
• are adumbrating
  progressive
• is adumbrating
  progressive
• have been adumbrating
  perfect progressive
• has been adumbrating
  perfect progressive

Past

• adumbrated
  simple
• had adumbrated
  perfect
• was adumbrating
  progressive
• were adumbrating
  progressive
• had been adumbrating
  perfect progressive

Future

• will adumbrate
  simple
• will have adumbrated
  perfect
• will be adumbrating
  progressive
• will have been adumbrating
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of adumbrate

First recorded in 1575–85; from Latin adumbrātus “shaded,” past participle of adumbrāre “to shade,” from ad- ad- + umbr(a) “shade, shadow” + -āre, infinitive verb suffix

Explanation

To adumbrate something is to outline it. In an English essay, you could adumbrate the themes in a novel; or, in a letter to Santa, you could adumbrate all the ways you have been behaving. Adumbrate is built on the Latin root umbra, "shade," and the image it evokes is of a shadow being cast around something. Your outline is like a shadow of something bigger — like the themes in that novel or the ways you have been behaving. You can also use adumbrate to mean "foreshadow": "The scene where the princess dreams of the vampire adumbrates her later discovery that her little brother is, in fact, a vampire."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

adumbrate adumbrates adumbrated adumbrating

His photographs have used a variety of techniques to adumbrate this world.

From New York Times ● Aug. 10, 2017

Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian But as soon as you adumbrate thus, you are beset with misgivings.

From The Guardian ● Apr. 19, 2016

Together with the bare facts of the retreat at Walden, those lines have become the ones by which we adumbrate Thoreau, so that our image of the man has also become simplified and inspirational.

From The New Yorker ● Oct. 19, 2015

Luther, Calvin and Wesley are as upstarts to him, whose phrases adumbrate the flowery staff of St. Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury.

From Time Magazine Archive

But we can adumbrate something of the form of this deepest reason, if we let the thoughts of our heart move upon the face of the dim profound.

From Unspoken Sermons Series I., II., and II. by MacDonald, George

More than any juice cleanse or lottery win or career switch, a foreign language adumbrates a vision of a parallel life.

From The New Yorker ● Aug. 1, 2016

But they furnish such extensive extracts from diaries and letters, as well as such detailed ''work histories'' of the compositions, that their valuable book adumbrates the shape of many biographies and studies to come.

From Time Magazine Archive

Very many things could be regimented and organized into the mute system of education that Goethe evidently adumbrates there.

From On the Choice of Books by Carlyle, Thomas

The figure of the villain, too, adumbrates, though faintly, the type which engaged Hawthorne's mind in later years.

From Nathaniel Hawthorne by Woodberry, George Edward

Of the six "Idyls," three—"In the Woods," "Siesta," and "To the Moonlight"—are memorable, though uneven; and of these the third, after Goethe's "An den Mond," adumbrates faintly MacDowell's riper manner.

From Edward MacDowell by Gilman, Lawrence

Passages of the original work underlined and adumbrated with exclamation marks and double or even treble question marks; phrases scored out and notes running down the margin at right angles to the printed text.

From The Guardian ● Apr. 28, 2020

In between, works by contemporaries complicate superficial ideas about his meteoric genius, and small, delicate drawings teem with an abundance of ideas — paintings never made, thoughts adumbrated then abandoned.

From Washington Post ● Oct. 18, 2019

His work on neuroscience and his initial support of McCulloch and Pitts adumbrated the startlingly effective deep-learning methods of the present day.

From Slate ● Feb. 28, 2019

But while lauding the rights and privileges of the Americans he observed, Tocqueville also adumbrated the responsibilities that came with being an American citizen.

From Time ● Nov. 2, 2016

He vaguely adumbrated what it was out of which she came.

From The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman by Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)

The filmmakers build to this moment as if it were D-Day or the Rumble in the Jungle, excavating a biographical Before and adumbrating a news media After.

From New York Times ● Jul. 30, 2015

In Wisconsin last week, Nixon gave a paid, 20-minute nationwide radio speech adumbrating a broad and basically moderate approach to the war.

From Time Magazine Archive

For now they were all very full of the approaching constitutional crisis, and were adumbrating in respectful, yet slightly menacing terms, what the King himself would do in the matter.

From King John of Jingalo The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties by Housman, Laurence

There was a blind primeval ferocity to be engendered by adumbrating, even for a few moments, their non-existence.

From Command by McFee, William

There only, they implied, could something adumbrating a sacred ritual and a spiritual consolation be preserved.

From The Book of Susan A Novel by Dodd, Lee Wilson