graphic

• graphick (obsolete)

From Latin graphicus (“belonging to painting or drawing”), from Ancient Greek γραφικός (graphikós, “belonging to painting or drawing, picturesque, of or for writing; of style, lively”), from γραφή (graphḗ, “drawing, painting, writing, a writing, description, etc.”), from γράφω (gráphō, “scratch, carve”) (cognate with English carve).

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡɹæfɪk/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -æfɪk

graphic (comparative more graphic, superlative most graphic)

1. Drawn, pictorial.

   The design team has created a new graphic language for the promotional material of this campaign.

2. Explicit, vivid, descriptive, often in relation to depictions of sex or violence.

   We are not publishing these images because of the graphic nature of the content.

   In the bodycam footage he is heard using graphic language to berate her.

3. Relating to or reminiscent of graphic arts.
   • 2026 May, Hannah Martin, “Grab a Chair”, in Architectural Digest, volume 83, number 4, page 24:

     That practice started on a 2018 visit to Ethiopia, where he encountered Jimma thrones, hewn from a single piece of wood with graphic cutouts.

4. (geology) Having a texture that resembles writing, commonly created by exsolution, devitrification and immiscibility processes in igneous rocks.

   graphic granite

graphic (plural graphics)

1. A drawing or picture.
2. (mostly in plural) A computer-generated image as viewed on a screen forming part of a game or a film etc.

   I've just played this new computer game: the graphics are amazing.

3. A moth of the subfamily Melipotini.

• “graphic”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “graphic”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “graphic”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.