limn
/lɪm
/verb [with object] literary
1Depict or describe in painting or words: Miss Read limns a gentler world in her novels...
- Beasts, vipers and monsters descend upon a mildmannered-looking man, likely a self-portrait, while a giant, sinuous snake, limned by several wavy lines of paint, hovers overhead.
- Here the main event is limned large on the picture plane.
- It is LeWitt's world, of course, but in its vast accumulation of specifics, it somehow limns the general, and the resulting work could be a composite view of the life of any artist in the late 20th century.
1.1Suffuse or highlight (something) with a bright colour or light: a crescent moon limned each shred with white gold...
- The shining ship swam serenely through the upper atmosphere, light limning its skin in shafts of golden brilliance as they sailed towards the barriers ahead, proud and uncaring.
- Unlike most of the nebulas that populate the universe, these clouds are limned by arcs or tings and bathed in the blue light emitted by helium ions.
- The curves of her body are limned in the half-dark by light reflected from the room's reddish carpet.
Origin
Late Middle English (in the sense 'illuminate a manuscript'): alteration of obsolete lumine 'illuminate', via Old French luminer from Latin luminare 'make light'.