Library / English Dictionary

CONTOUR

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any spatial attributes (especially as defined by outline)

Example:

he could barely make out their shapes

Synonyms:

configuration; conformation; contour; form; shape

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("contour" is a kind of...):

spatial property; spatiality (any property relating to or occupying space)

Attribute:

straight (having no deviations)

crooked (having or marked by bends or angles; not straight or aligned)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "contour"):

keenness; sharpness (thinness of edge or fineness of point)

bluntness; dullness (without sharpness or clearness of edge or point)

topography (the configuration of a surface and the relations among its man-made and natural features)

lobularity (the property of having lobules)

concaveness; concavity (the property possessed by a concave shape)

convexity; convexness (the property possessed by a convex shape)

angularity (the property possessed by a shape that has angles)

narrowing (an instance of becoming narrow)

curvature; curve (the property possessed by the curving of a line or surface)

roundness (the property possessed by a line or surface that is curved and not angular)

straightness (freedom from crooks or curves or bends or angles)

crookedness (having or distinguished by crooks or curves or bends or angles)

stratification (a layered configuration)

Derivation:

contour (form the contours of)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A feature (or the order or arrangement of features) of anything having a complex structure

Example:

it defines a major contour of this administration

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Hypernyms ("contour" is a kind of...):

characteristic; feature (a prominent attribute or aspect of something)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A line drawn on a map connecting points of equal height

Synonyms:

contour; contour line

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("contour" is a kind of...):

isometric; isometric line (a line connecting isometric points)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "contour"):

thalweg (a line following the lowest points of a valley)

Derivation:

contour (form the contours of)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Form the contours of

Classified under:

Verbs of sewing, baking, painting, performing

Hypernyms (to "contour" is one way to...):

delineate; limn; outline (trace the shape of)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "contour"):

streamline (contour economically or efficiently)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

contour (any spatial attributes (especially as defined by outline))

contour (a line drawn on a map connecting points of equal height)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Tubular (10-20 mm length) or eccentric or moderate tortuosity of proximal segment or moderately angulated segment, 45-90 degrees or irregular contour or moderate to heavy calcification or ostial in location or bifurcation lesions requiring double guidewires or some thrombus present or total occlusion less than 3 months old.

(American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Lesion Complexity Score B, NCI Thesaurus/ACC)

Discrete (less than 10 mm length) and concentric and readily accessible and non-angulated segment less than 45 degrees and smooth contour and little or no calcification and less than totally occlusive and not ostial in location and no major branch involvement and absence of thrombus.

(American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Lesion Complexity Score A, NCI Thesaurus/ACC)

The muscle that creates the rounded contour of the shoulder which originates from the lateral third of the clavicle, the superior surface of the acromion process, and the posterior border of the spine of the scapula and inserts on the lateral side of the shaft of the humerus.

(Deltoid, NCI Thesaurus)

Soon I had traced on the paper a broad and prominent forehead and a square lower outline of visage: that contour gave me pleasure; my fingers proceeded actively to fill it with features.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

His form was of the same strong and stalwart contour as ever: his port was still erect, his hair was still raven black; nor were his features altered or sunk: not in one year's space, by any sorrow, could his athletic strength be quelled or his vigorous prime blighted.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

There appeared, within three feet of him, a form clad in pure white—a youthful, graceful form: full, yet fine in contour; and when, after bending to caress Carlo, it lifted up its head, and threw back a long veil, there bloomed under his glance a face of perfect beauty.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

In each of the sisters there was one trait of the mother—and only one; the thin and pallid elder daughter had her parent's Cairngorm eye: the blooming and luxuriant younger girl had her contour of jaw and chin—perhaps a little softened, but still imparting an indescribable hardness to the countenance otherwise so voluptuous and buxom.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

He was left with his singularly appropriate education; the vague contour of Jay Gatsby had filled out to the substantiality of a man.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western Hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)