What does describing mean?
"Describing" is the present participle and gerund of the verb "describe", one of the most fundamental acts of language: conveying what a person, place, object, or experience is like through words. When someone is describing something, they are portraying its qualities, appearance, or character so that others can form a mental picture of it. The word also carries a more technical sense in geometry, where describing a figure means tracing its outline. Derived from the Latin scribere, meaning "to write", the term reminds us that description is fundamentally an act of putting the world into words. It is neutral in tone, at home in everything from eyewitness testimony and scientific reporting to travel writing and casual conversation, and it pairs naturally with adjectives of skill or effort, as in "remarkably good at describing" or "beyond describing". Its close relatives — description, descriptive, describable — make it part of a productive family central to communication.
verbThe present participle and gerund of "describe": to give an account of something in words, portraying its characteristics, appearance, or nature; also, to trace out or mark the shape or outline of something.
- To give an account of someone or something in spoken or written words, conveying its qualities, features, or nature.
- To serve as a name or label for; to be called by a particular term.
- (Geometry) To trace or draw the form or outline of a figure.
"She spent the evening describing her journey across the Andes in vivid detail."
"The witness had difficulty describing the suspect's face to the police."
"The novel opens with its narrator describing the fog rolling in over the harbour."
Every time you describe something, you're literally 'writing it down' — the word comes straight from Latin scribere, 'to write', making describing an act of writing even when no pen is involved.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of describing
"Describing" derives from the Latin describere, formed from de- (indicating completeness) plus scribere, "to write" — hence literally "to write down fully". The verb passed into English via Old French descrire/descriver in late Middle English, with the participle "describing" following naturally. The same Latin root scribere underlies a wide family of English words, including scribe, script, manuscript, inscription, prescribe, and transcribe, all of which retain some notion of writing or drawing.
Related word forms
How describing is actually used
Fully standard in both formal and informal registers. In everyday speech, "describing" often appears in progressive constructions ("she was describing...") and as a gerund after prepositions ("good at describing things"). The geometric sense is technical and largely confined to mathematical writing.
Easily confused with describing
"Ascribing" means attributing something (such as a quality or a work) to a source, whereas "describing" means giving an account of what something is like.