to rough in
1
6.6
- phrasal verb
- /rʌf ɪn/
:
esbozar
- "A bit rough in there, eh?" Inspector Field remarked to Thompson.
Examples
-
Before starting the detailed drawing, she decided to rough in the main shapes with a pencil.
-
So basically I went in there, roughed in the entire thing.
-
Blacks have it rough in Alabama.
Fiction book (1990) -
Next, I roughed in most of the body and drew a long tail streaming out behind.
Fiction book (2000) -
We drafted a rough outline in a week and spent the vacation detailing its diction.
Blog text (25) -
After a short ceremony for the felling, the carver sets up a temporary encampment and roughs out a shape in the green wood.
Academic text (1990) -
The architect will rough in the basic structure of the new building before adding any detailed designs.
-
In his first draft, he roughed in the main ideas, planning to refine them later.
Synonyms
138
3.7
To make an early version of a document or plan
57
6.5
To make a quick simple drawing or plan
45
3.0
To make a quick rough drawing to plan an idea
1
5.1
To make a simple first version of an idea or plan as a quick drawing
To make a simple plan or outline for something
Antonyms
How Detailed
Surface Forms
Morphology
The core idea of an unfinished or tentative version is directly linked to 'rough' (tentative, approximate), so a learner who knows that adjective could plausibly guess the verb means to produce something unpolished. However, the particle 'in' does not transparently contribute the specific procedural sense of 'create or lay out a preliminary version,' and the phrasal-verb usage is somewhat conventional, making the overall meaning only partially predictable.
Etymology
The phrasal verb rough in comes from artists and builders who first make a quick, rough shape in a piece of work. They rough in the main lines or pipes before adding the fine details, so the phrase means 'to make a basic, unfinished version'.