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Glite Dictionary
rough drawing

rough drawing

1 3.7
A quick simple sketch that shows the main ideas
  • noun
: boceto
  • Before starting her mural, she made a rough drawing to outline the main characters.

You can find tailors on Instagram, send rough drawings, maybe get a tech pack and make something more custom made for you.

Examples

  • This is a rough drawing of the track as I remember.

    American Animals (2018)

  • You can find tailors on Instagram, send rough drawings, maybe get a tech pack and make something more custom made for you.

    Patricia Bright

  • I want to have a children's book professionally illustrated based on my rough drawings of each page.

    Blog text (6)

  • The way I'm doing it now is I import my rough drawing into Illustrator and then ink the lines.

    Blog text (1)

  • He sketched a rough drawing in the margins of his book, and his wife told him to go back to sleep.

    Blog text (29)

  • A rough drawing of the animal's leg, intertwined with steel rods and metal threads, culminates in a large pulley where the hip bone should be.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • The artist created a rough drawing to plan the composition of her painting.

  • His rough drawing captured the basic layout of the building before any details were added.

Synonyms

draft
vsrough drawing
  • Specialized
223 3.7

An early version of a document or plan

focuses broadly on text and plans rather than a handmade picture outline
drawing
vsrough drawing
200 1.0

A picture made by hand with a pen or pencil

is specifically a preliminary sketch meant to outline basics without fine detail
rough
vsrough drawing
1 4.7

A quick simple drawing that shows the basic idea

is the two word expression for the same preliminary sketch
underdrawing
vsrough drawing
  • Specialized
1 8.2

A light sketch on a painting surface made before the artist adds the final paint

is a general preparatory sketch for design or picture rather than only before painting
croquis
vsrough drawing
  • Specialized
1 9.9

A quick rough sketch showing the main shape or position of a person

is a general preliminary sketch used across many design and picture types

How Detailed

rough drawing
1 3.7
to sketch
66 3.0
to scribble
52 3.5

Surface Forms

rough drawing singular
rough drawings plural

Morphology

rough + drawing

The meaning 'a preliminary sketch made without fine details' is directly and compositionally derived from 'rough' (tentative/approximate) + 'drawing' (a picture or sketch). This adjective+noun pattern is a regular, cross-linguistically common composition, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

Rough drawing comes from artists who made quick, rough lines to capture a 'first idea' before working on a finished picture. So a rough drawing is a simple sketch that shows the main parts but is 'not detailed'.