picture rail
- noun
- /ˈpɪk.tʃər reɪl/
:
riel para cuadros
- To add character to the room, they painted the picture rail a bold color that complemented the walls.
Examples
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Many homes feature picture rails for displaying art.
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She arranged various frames along the picture rail to showcase her family's memories.
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He used wire to suspend the frame from the picture rail in the hallway.
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The paintings hung from the picture rail, giving the room a classic look.
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Victorian homes often feature a picture rail just below the ceiling.
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The living room has a beautiful picture rail.
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The contractor installed a stylish picture rail so that the homeowners could easily swap artwork.
Synonyms
157
1.9
A long bar fixed for people to hold or as a fence
How Wide
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and compositionally built from 'picture' (an image) + 'rail' (a horizontal bar), i.e. a rail used for hanging pictures. This is a straightforward noun‑noun compound following common English and cross‑linguistic patterns, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would readily infer the meaning.
Etymology
Picture rail comes from old homes where a thin wooden rail ran high on the wall so people could hang pictures from wires without making holes. That's why the name now means 'a narrow horizontal rail fixed to a wall, from which pictures can be hung'.