Definition of: sketch

(skech) noun
1. An incomplete but suggestive delineation or presentation of anything whether graphic or literary: an outline
2. An artist's preliminary study, graphic or plastic of a work of art intended for elaboration
3. A literary or dramatic composition, short, discursive, and of slight construction
4. A short scene, play, or musical act. especially in vaudeville.
—v.t. To make a sketch or sketches of; outline.
—v.i. To make a sketch or sketches. [<Du. schets <Ital. schizzo <L schedium improvisation <Gk. schedios]
—sketch′a·ble adjective
—sketch′er noun Synonyms (noun): brief, delineation, draft, drawing, outline, picture, plan, skeleton. An outline gives only the bounding or determining lines of a figure or a scene; a sketch may give lines, shading and color, but is hasty and incomplete. The lines of a sketch are seldom so full and continuous as those of an outline. Draft and plan apply especially to mechanical drawing, of which outline, sketch, and drawing are also used; a plan is strictly a view from above, as of a building or machine, giving the lines of a horizontal section, originally at the level of the ground, now in a wider sense at any height; as, a plan of the cellar; a plan of the attic. A design is such a preliminary sketch as indicates the object to be accomplished or the result to be attained, and is understood to be original. One may make a drawing of any well–known mechanism, or a drawing from another man's design; but if he says “The design is mine,” he claims it as his own invention or composition. In written composition an outline gives simply the main divisions, and is often called a skeleton; a somewhat fuller suggestion of illustration, treatment, and style is given in a sketch. A lawyer's brief is a succinct statement of the main facts in a case, and of the main heads of his argument on points of law, with reference to authorities. See PICTURE.