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stock photograph

stock photograph

3.4
A photograph available to buy or license for ads and publications
  • noun
  • /stɑk ˈfɒtəˌgræf/
translation icon : fotografía de archivo
  • Before publishing, she searched for a stock photograph of a serene landscape to accompany her blog post.

Examples

  • The magazine used a stunning stock photograph to illustrate the article on travel.

  • Many websites offer high-quality stock photographs for businesses to use in their marketing materials.

  • There aren't any "functional" price comparison sites for stock photographs, but you can use Google again to discover stock websites that offer the best deal on a particular photograph.

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Synonyms

stock image
vsstock photograph
1 3.5

A photo made by professionals that people buy or use for projects

is a preexisting licensed picture often used in publications or advertising

How Affordable

microstock
  • Jargon
3 4.8
stock photograph
3.4

Surface Forms

Morphology

stock + photograph

The combination of 'stock' (regularly available/in inventory) and 'photograph' makes it partially predictable that it refers to a photo from an existing collection. However, the commercial/licensing sense (photos licensed for reuse) and the polysemy of 'stock' (which can also mean 'conventional' or 'formulaic') are not fully transparent to a B1 learner, so the precise industry meaning may not be inferable without exposure.

Etymology

The compound stock photograph comes from the idea of a stock, a ready supply of goods, and a photograph. Imagine a photo agency keeping boxes of pictures ready to sell. Because these images were kept 'in stock' and reused, they came to mean pictures you can 'license' instead of making a new one.