blueprint
Americannoun
-
blueprints
plural
verb (used with object)
-
blueprints,
present (3rd person singular)
-
blueprinted,
past participle, past
-
blueprinting
present participle
noun
-
Also called: cyanotype. a photographic print of plans, technical drawings, etc, consisting of white lines on a blue background
-
an original plan or prototype that influences subsequent design or practice
the Montessori method was the blueprint for education in the 1940s
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
blueprintsimple
-
blueprintssimple
-
have blueprintedperfect
-
has blueprintedperfect
-
am blueprintingprogressive
-
are blueprintingprogressive
-
is blueprintingprogressive
-
have been blueprintingperfect progressive
-
has been blueprintingperfect progressive
Past
-
blueprintedsimple
-
had blueprintedperfect
-
was blueprintingprogressive
-
were blueprintingprogressive
-
had been blueprintingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of blueprint
Explanation
A blueprint is a guide for making something — it's a design or pattern that can be followed. Want to build the best tree house ever? Draw up a blueprint and follow the design carefully. The literal meaning of a blueprint is a paper — which is blue — with plans for a building printed on it. You can also call other guides or plans blueprints. The way you do your homework every night could provide a blueprint for your little sister’s study habits. A business plan is a blueprint for a profitable business. Religions and philosophies provide the blueprint for many people’s lives. A blueprint helps you figure out what to do.
Vocabulary lists containing blueprint
The Ingenious Lexicon of Invention
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
Hey, Kiddo
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
Architecture 101
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"Our work provides a blueprint for designing better materials that can bring down the cost of green hydrogen," said Stylianou, who directs OSU's Materials Discovery Laboratory, known as the MaD Lab.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 4, 2026
The shift set them apart across Asia and helped establish the blueprint for modern self-produced acts such as BTS.
From BBC ● Sep. 27, 2026
The chefs at the festival weren’t offering a single blueprint for how to accomplish that.
From Salon ● Sep. 27, 2026
Basically, punk is like a blueprint for people to find their own individuality.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 24, 2026
To take a recent example, historians are still debating whether blueprint copying or idea diffusion contributed more to Russia’s building of an atomic bomb.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
It includes an architectural model and original blueprints of the Integratron, as well as nearly 630 photographs, negatives and slides, more than 250 audio recordings, 8-millimeter film footage, books, publications and other records and ephemera.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 1, 2026
The blueprints will allow Ukraine to produce the long-range weapon domestically.
From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026
That’s warp speed compared with how long it takes to turn nuclear-reactor blueprints into power plants.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
Despite AI companies’ protests, it appears that AI’s blueprints are about as hard to contain as those from our previous industrial revolutions.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026
These delightfully proportioned amusements would therefore need all the help they could get from formal blueprints like Sonata Form, and from musical versions of the balanced layouts of Capability Brown’s gardens, or Robert Adam’s buildings.
From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall
The National Guard's Special Immediate Reaction Force blueprinted the operation for the assault on Sunday with both land and air maneuvers.
From Barron's ● Feb. 23, 2026
“Marquee Moon” is both architectonic and disorienting, blueprinted and unpredictable.
From New York Times ● Jan. 29, 2023
Many of the songs we do are blueprinted on both sides of the Atlantic.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 17, 2022
It’s not merely the stratospheric box-office expectations, but also the need – under the cinematic-universe model blueprinted by Marvel – for each film to fit the aesthetic and actors into a larger whole.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 15, 2017
Presumably it was not thought out and blueprinted in advance but worked out by trial and error, episode by episode, step by step—perhaps, also, leap by leap.
From Civilization and Beyond Learning from History by Scott Nearing
Herschel called the technique cyanotyping, but it is better known today as blueprinting.
From Scientific American ● Mar. 29, 2021
For the coalition of local officials, businesses and nonprofits leading the way, the blueprinting of the city presents an intensely varied task.
From Forbes ● May 19, 2015
They are blueprinting airplane factories and plush government offices.
From Time Magazine Archive
Since 1962, the Monitor, which is never one to rush things, has been blueprinting a self-improvement program calculated to restore the paper's waning market.
From Time Magazine Archive
A few, like Douglas and Lockheed, have talked of blueprinting a model.
From Time Magazine Archive
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
