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Glite Dictionary
rough drawing

rough drawing

3.7
A quick simple sketch that shows the main ideas
  • noun
translation icon : 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
245 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
184 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
croquis
vsrough drawing
  • Specialized
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
underdrawing
vsrough drawing
  • Specialized
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

How Detailed

rough drawing
3.7
to sketch
45 3.0
to scribble
55 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'.