• scetch(archaic)

FromDutchschets orGermanSkizze, fromItalianschizzo, fromLatinschedium, fromAncient Greekσχέδιος(skhédios,“made suddenly, off-hand”), fromσχεδόν(skhedón,“near, nearby”), fromἔχω(ékhō,“I hold”). Comparescheme.

• (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 presentsketches,present participlesketching,simple past and past participlesketched)

1. (ambitransitive) To make a brief, basic drawing.

   I usuallysketch with a pen rather than a pencil.

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

   Hesketched the accident, sticking to the facts as they had happened.

sketch (pluralsketches)

1. A rapidly executed freehanddrawing that is not intended as a finished work, often consisting of a multitude of overlapping lines.
   • 1879,R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter II, inThe 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 asketch from a picture of a Greek warrior; and a rake-handle served as a shaft.

   • 2012 March,Brian Hayes, “Pixels or Perish”, inAmerican Scientist, volume100, number 2, page106:

     Drawings and pictures are more than mere ornaments in scientific discourse. Blackboardsketches, 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 roughdesign,plan, ordraft, as a rough draft of a book.
3. A brief description of a person or account of an incident; a generalpresentation oroutline.

   Synonyms:pen picture,pen portrait

   I have to write a charactersketch for a novel study.

4. A brief, light, or unfinisheddramatic,musical, orliterary work or idea; especially a short, oftenhumorous orsatirical scene or play, frequently as part of arevue or variety show.

   Synonym:skit

   1. A brief musical composition or theme, especially for thepiano.
   2. A brief, light, or informal literary composition, such as anessay orshort story.
5. (informal) An amusing person.
6. (slang,Ireland) Alookout; vigilant watch for something.

   to keepsketch

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

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

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

     TheDaily Telegraphsketch 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 Timessketch as one of the wittiest writers and talkers in England.

8. (category theory) A formalspecification of amathematical structure or adata type described in terms of agraph anddiagrams (andcones (andcocones)) on it. It can be implemented by means of “models”, which are functors which aregraph homomorphisms from the formal specification to categories such that the diagrams becomecommutative, 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 (comparativemoresketch,superlativemostsketch)

1. (informal)Sketchy,shady,questionable.
   • 2019, Justin Blackburn,The Bisexual Christian Suburban Failure Enlightening Bipolar Blues, page28:

     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'ssketch. I don't even want to ask what you're doing.

•  sketch on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Borrowed fromEnglishsketch, fromDutchschets.

• IPA^(key):/skɛtʃ/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation:sketch

sketch m (pluralsketches,diminutivesketchje n)

1. sketch,skit(short comic work)

• cabaretsketch

Borrowed fromEnglishsketch.

• IPA^(key):/skɛtʃ/

• Audio(Canada):

  (file)

sketch m (pluralsketchs)

1. sketch,skit (short comic work)

• “sketch”, inTrésor de la langue française informatisé[Digitized Treasury of the French Language],2012.

Borrowed fromEnglishsketch fromDutchschets, fromItalianschizzo, fromLatinschedium, fromAncient Greekσχέδιος(skhédios,“made suddenly, off-hand”).

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

sketch m (invariable)

1. sketch,skit (short comic work)

Unadapted borrowing fromEnglishsketch.

sketch m (pluralsketches)

1. Alternative form ofesquete

   Synonym:rábula

Unadapted borrowing fromEnglishsketch.

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

sketch m (pluralsketches)

1. skit;sketch (short comic work)

According toRoyal 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”, inDiccionario 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 fromEnglishsketch, fromDutchschets, fromItalianschizzo.Doublet ofskiss.

sketch c

1. sketch,skit(short comic work)

• skiss

• sketch inSvenska Akademiens ordböcker